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,1 "About the noblest work that man can do is the de-^'elopnu-nt of this niainit'iieut continent f 

Ct' of yours." — TiiuMAS HroiiEs, M. I'. ■^) 



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ADDRESS 



HON. WM. 1). IvELLEY, 



N()I!T1IKI{\ PAOIFir |{aii-\v\v. 



IN lis KII A ric)\- l>> I HI 



Hcucloiiiiiciil of llic ^oilhuicsltiu ^cdipii rt llic uliiilcil !?tfllc3 



ANI> TO HIE IMHSTKIAI AM> CUMMFRt lAI. INTERESTS OK THE NATION. 




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'■About the noblest ivork f/iat mail can Jo is tJw development of this ma.^nijiccnt 
continent of yours.'" — TuoNUs Hl'(;hes, M. P. 



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ADDRESS 



Hon. Wm. D. Kelley 



[Eeported by D. WOLFE BRO'WN, PlionogTap'her.j 



^mif PACIFIC I|_AILWAY, 



IN" ITS RELATIONS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NORTHWESTERN SECTION OF THE 

UNITED STATES, AND TO THE INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL 

INTERESTS OF THE NATION*. 






Biodget 



€ottt$\mu\t\\u, 



Philadelphia, May 27:h, 1371. 
H0/\/. WILLIAM D. KELLEY : 

Dear Sir: — Recognizing your position as a representative American, witli an 
intelligent interest in the material progress of the country, we respectUilly ask you 
to address the Commercial Exchange and the citizens of Philadelphia, at your 
earliest convenience, on the development of the Northwest section of the Conti- 
nent by the building of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and the effect of this 
enter])rise upon the trade, manufactures and commerce of our State and city. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servants. 



S. I. COMLV, 

Prrsldvtil Commercial Excluinge. 

Morton McMichael, 
M. Baird & Co., 
E. Harper Jekeries, 
George L. Buzbv, 
S. J. Christian, 
Samuel M. Felton, 

I'l-exklent Pennsylvania Steel Co. 

Washington J. Jackson, 
P. A. Keller, 
Herman J. Lomraert, 

J^-e-tideiU American Steamship Co. 

J. W. Jones, 

Sec. PhiUntelphia and Reading liailroiid. 

'I'liuMAs A. Scott, 

Prcs. Pa. th. and P. C. and S. L. 11. U. 

J. Vi. Fell, 
A. R. McHenrv, 
Lewis Ai'denreid, 
Edwin N. Benson, 
John P. Wetherill, 
A. Whitney & Sons, 
C. H. Clark, 
James L. Claghorn, 
G. M. Troutman, 
Asa Packer, 

J'rr.iident Lehigh Valley Railroad. 

E. A. Rollins, 
N. B. Browne, 
Tho.mas Rohins, 
John Jordan, Jr., 
Henry H. Bingham, 
Alex. G. Cattell t\: Co., 
Dell Noblit, Jr., 
Logan Bros. & Co., 
Frederick Fraley. 



J. Edgar Thomson, 

President Pennsylvania Railroad. 

Thomas Smith, 
Henry D. Welsh, 
Henry Lewis, 
Daniel Smith, Jr., 
William G. Crowell, 
J. W. Forney, 

WlLLIA.M C. LoNGSTRETH, 

Coffin Colket, 
Charles Platt, 
Isaac Hinckley, 

President P. U'. and B. Railroad. 

W. W. Harding, 
George H. Stuart, 
A. P. Colesbury, 
D. Faust, 

Joel J. Baily & Co., 
John O. James, 
Charles Santee, 
Samuel H. Shipley, 
Tho.mas C. Hand, 

D. B. Cu.m.mins, 
Arthur G. Coffin, 
Henry D. Sherrerd, 
J. P. Aertsen, 

Tiros, ir. and B. T. .V. R. R. and Oxil Co. 

M. P. Hutchinson, 

JYrsldcnt Oitdwissa Railroad. 

W. L. Gilroy, 

Treasurer Oatawltsa Raitroiui, 

F. A. Comly, 

JYesidmt XortA Pennsi/lvania RaUrtxuL 

G. A. Wood, 

E. C. Knight & Co., 
R. H. Downincj, 

President B. and S. R. R. Cb. 



Philadelphia, June 5:h, 1871. 

Gentlem'JN : — Your invitation to address the citizens of Philadelphia on the 
development of the Northwestern section of the United States by the building of 
the Northern Pacific Railroad, and the effect of this enterprise upon the trade, 
manufactures and commerce of our State and city, invites me to continue in the 
advocacy of an enterprise for the promotion of which I have, as opportunity offered, 
labored for more than a quarter of a century. 

I will find pleasure in complying with your request on the evening of Monday 
next, the 12th inst. With thanks for the flattering terms in which you were pleased 
to express your wishes, I am, 



Very truly yours. 



WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 



To S. I. Comly, J. Edgar Thomson, Thomas A. Scott, John O. James, M. Baird 
& Co., George H. Stuart, and others. 



The public meeting, which was called in pursuance of the above correspond- 
ence, assembled in the American Academy of Music, on the evening of Monday, 
June 12. A crowded audience of more than four thousand citizens of Philadelphia, 
and prominent gentlemen from other parts of Pennsylvania, attested the general 
interest felt in the subject to be discussed. 

The meeting was called to order by Seth I. Comly, Esq., and the following 
officers were then elected : 

President : 

HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN W. GEARY, 

GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



Vice-Presidents 



Hon. John Swift, 
Col. James Page, 
Wm. M. MEREurrH, 
J. O. James, 
A. J. Lewis, 
Jos. Price, 
Henry M. Phillips, 
John Farnum, 
Nathan Brooke, 
Wash. J. Jackson, 
George Fai.es, 
John Sellers, 
Henry Winsor, 
Matthew Paird, 
Gen. R. Patterson, 
Alexander Brown, 
Gen. W. McCandless, 
Gen. H. II. Bingham, 
A. G. Cattei.l, 



RoBT. P. Dechert, 
A. J. Deruyshire, 
Jay Cooke, 
S. Bradford, 
Richard Wright, 
John A. Houseman, 
Henry C. Carey, 
Henry G. Morris, 
J. Rinaldo Sank, 
James McManes, 
C. A. Griscom, 
Charles Wheeler, 

J. H. MiCHENER, 

James C. Hand, 
Alex. Whilldik, 
Seth I. Comly, 
N. B. Browne, 
William M.^ssey, 

FURMAN SHEI'I'ARD, 



S. A. Crozer, 
Wm. B. Bement, 
Wm. Gillespie, 
Morton McMichael, 
Alfred Day, 
William Elliott, 
Caleb Cope, 
George A. Wood, 
Wm. V. McGrath, 
Morris Uavis, 
James Pollock, 
Saml. j. Reeves, 
Saml. E. Stokes, 
E. Y. Townsend, 
Jacob Riegel, 
Thos. E. Hand, 
Evan Randolph, 
Isaac Jeanes, 
Lewis Audenreid, 



E. H. Trotter, 
Jas. F. Stockdale, 
Benjamin Bullock, 
Henry Preaut, 
Clarence H. Clarke, 
John Uevereux, 
B. K. Jamison, 
William Greer, 
Fred. H. Newhall, 
Henry C. Gibson, 
JosiAH Bacon, 
Dr. E. C. Kamerly, 
Geo. L. Harrison, 
James Albright, 
George Whitnev, 
E. W. Clarke, 
E. A. Knight, 
J. Gillingham Fell, 
George G. Parrish, 



J. C. Rosi NOARTKN, 

John C. McCali., 
William S. Grant, 
William I). Li.wis, 
(ien. V. M. I'RF.vosT, 
(;kor(;k W. DiuuLi:, 
K. C. Knic.iit, 
J. B. Lii'i'iNcorr, 
Coffin Colkkt, 

WM. II. HORSTMANN, 

K. IIaki'i.r JkffriI'IS, 
Alkri:ij I). jKssi:r, 
David S. ISuown, 
JosKFn Lka, 
1'rancis R. Copk., 

ANDRKW WlIK.lCLKR, 

William J. Nkau, 
John J. TiioMi'soN, 
Thomas Smith, 
I). H. Cummins, 
K. M. Llwis, 
I'l. B. Comk.(;ys, 
Josia-H Moore, 

A. G. Cf)KFlN, 

William Adamson, 
C. H. Sciukner, 
W. C. Allison, 
J. B. McCreary, 
Louis Wacner, 
John E. Grakkf, 
(ien. Josiu A T. OwKN, 
William IUmm, 

Ilr.NRY l.LWIS, 

Richard Wood, 
Samiel W. Cattell, 
Henry IIuhn, 
Jamius L. Cl AG horn, 
John W. Forney, 
Fred. Frai.ky, 
W. W. Hari.inc., 

A. R. McIIl NRY, 

II. G. Gowi.N, 
RoiiERT Shoemaker, 
Charli-s Vezin, 
1". W. LocKwoou, 
1,. Wester(;aard, 
Jos. Bailey, 
J. K. Caldwell, 
J. M. WniTAi.L, 

H. v.. r.ENNEKS, 

L. C". Madeira, . 
Thomas li. W.vrrsoN, 
Wii.i lAM Brckkie, 
CiEORCE C. Carson, 
C. V. Knicht, 
John L. IIoiGii, 

1'. B. MiNCLE. 

Fred. C.erickr, 
i:. C. Fhv. 
William B. Mann, 
James Graham, 
II. W. Workman, 
Jerry Walker, 
E. A. Socder, 
William Cimmings, 

ThEO. ClYI.ER, 

RouEKT K. Nekf, 



G. F. Lennig, 

Gen. koBT. L. BODINE, 

J. EiK-.AR Thomson, 

A. C. Craige, 
Stephen Flanagan, 

B. II. Bartel, 
Thomas Clyde, 

J. Vaigiin Merrick, 
Henry C^eiger, 
A. J. Focht, 
Ed. S. Handy, 
W.M. McAleer, 
J. S. Newi.in, 
Benj. Horner, 
Charles J. Sharpllss, 
Reeve L. Knighp, 
Clement Biddle, 
Benj. Orne, 
John W. Thomas, 
Henry M. Stone, 

C. II. Cimmings, 
W. E. Lock wood, 
Madison R. Harris, 
Charles Smith, 

P. S. JANNEY, 

Francis Jordan, 
J. V. Creely, 
Isaac G. Colesberry, 
Hon. J. F. Bei-sterling, 
Charlf.s B. Trego, 
N. I'. Shortridge, 

11. II. LiPPlNCOTT, 

John II. Krause, 
Thornton Conrow, 
Jas. S. Martin, 
George J. Waterman, 
William T. Kirk, 
Isaac Hoigh, 
F. F. Bernadou, 
William L. Jame^s, 
Henry Marcis, 
C. II. Garden, 

A IGUSTIS 1 1 EATON, 

William II. Sowers, 
William S. Stoki.ey, 
John L. Shoemaker,' 
Thomas A. Scott, 
J. M. Vance, 
N. B. Kneass, 
A. H. Franciscus, 

E. I'. Kr.RsHow, 
v.. Tracy, 
Henry Davis, 
Asa Whitney, 
Wm. L. McDowell, 
Henry D. Welsh, 

A. F. ClIESEIlRolGH, 

F. H. BlTLER. 
W. H. Fl.lTCRAET, 

Henry W. Gray, 
Isaac Kohn, 
C. Ma(;argee, 
Rom RT II. Beatty, 
J. >L Wilcox, 
Samiel (}. Ki.ng, 
Thomas Sparks, 
George Triman, 



M. J. DniiAN, 
Isaac Hinckley, 
Tiios. Doi.AN, 

1 1 1 . R M A N J . I ,( )M n A ERT, 

John I'. Wetherill, 
J. W. Jones, 
Geo. a. Nicoli-s, 
J. r. Aertsen, 
M. 1'. Hutchinson, . 
Asa Packer, 
E. A. Rollins, 
V. A. Co.mly, 
Geo. Howell, 
Samiel Field, 
Samuel Welsh, 
John Welsh, Jr., 
John P. Verrke, 
Wm. E. Litileton, 
Washington Butcher, 
William Dorsey, 
A. T. Eberman, 
RoPKRT Cornelius, 
Samuel J. Christian, 
William B. Eli.I'^on, 
Thomas H. Moore, 
A. K. McCi.ure, 
Peter Williamson, 
F'rederick Ladner, 
J. L. Erringer, 
William G. Boulton, 
Edward S. Clarke, 
Robert Toland, 
William M. Greiner, 
Edwin Grehi.e, 
William M. Baird, 
John Rice, 
Samuel T. Bodine, 
William Purvrs, 
Saunders Lewis, 
Wm. C. Houston, 
Joshua P. Eyre. 
Thos. p. Stoticsbury, 
I^ANiEi. Smith, 
Christian Hoffman, 
Chas. Macai.e.ster, 
Geo. 11. Stuart, 
Chas. S. Lewis, 
John B. Austin, 
Samuel Bispham, 
Wm. Sti.venson, 
Samuel B. Thomas, 
P. Fitzpatrick, 
MoRo Philips, 
Jesse Godley. 

D. H. KiRKPAlRICK, 
W. H. ASHHURST, 

John RoHBiNs, 
M. Hall Stanton, 
William Anspach, 
Orlando Crease, 
Wm. A. Porter, 
Edmund L. Levy, 
Gen. GitiEON Clarke, 
Wm. L. Hirst, 
Henry Boraef, 

Jas. BONBRIGHT, 



Benj. Homer, 
Charles Plait, 
c. b. durhorow, 
F. A. Klemm, 
S. (iRoss Fry, 
J. Fraley Smith, 
Jos. H. Tkotier, 
Wm. Cramp, 

I. c. c.vssidy, 
Geo. N. Allen, 
John A. Shermer, 
Louis Haehnlen, 
Jacob G. Ni;afie, 
Joseph Wayne, 

Gen. John F. Ballier, 
Alex M. Fox, 
Jos. F. Marcer, 
John O'Byrne, 
Thos. G. Hood, 
Thos. W. Evans, 
Wm. R. Leeds, 
George K. Zeigler, 

D. C. W. Smith, 
WisTAR Morris. 

J NO. II. Cat HER WOOD, 

E. N. Ben. SON, 

II. C. K El. LOG, 
Jos. H. DULLF5, 
C.EORriE De B. Keim, 
Stephen S. Price, 
W. J. Pollock, 
Alexander Kerr, 

S. Fulton, 
s. s. scattergood, 
James Abbott, 
John S. Weimer, 
George L. Bu/.hy, 
John II. Dohnert, 
Israel Peterson, 
John a. Bri>wn, 
"Amp.rose White, 
John Ma.son, 
GiLLF_s Dallett, 
Richard Vaux. 
Chari.i-:s McKion, 
Richard Ludlow, 
TiiADDEirs Fairbanks, 
.\rtiiur Coi.burn, 
Wm. M. Wiuson, 
Paul Graff, 
J. Harvey Cochran, 
Ai.F. E. Harmer, 
Leonard Myers, 
Samuel J. Randall, 
Wm. E. SIiskey, 
D. Landreth. 
Richard Levkk, 
A. A. Shumway, 
W. J. Caner. 
John Wanamaker, 
D. H. Rock hill, 
T. S. Emery, 
j. j. buciiey, 
Thos. S. Fernon, 
J. E. Addicks, 
Henry D. Sherrerd. 



Secrcta)'ies : 



Alex. P. Colesberry, 
George A. Smith, 
Lor IN Blodget, 
Stephen N. Winslow, 
Clayton McMichael, 
Eli T. Starr, 
Lewis Waln Smith, 
Peter Lesley, 
John D. Stockton, 
Jas. S. Chambers, 
Wm. F. Corbit, 



Alex. J. McCleary, 
Wm. H. Cunnington, 
Wm. B. Hanna, 
David F. Houston, 
Albert Frick, 
G. W. Hamersley, 
Riter Fitzgerald, 
Charles K. Ide, 
George G. Pierie, 
Harry Todd, 



Frank Wells, 
R. Shel. Mackenzie, 
John D. Watson, 
Jos. K. McCammon, 
Chas. E. Warburton, 
W. W. Nevin, 
C. E. School, 
E. E. MoRWiTZ, 
Jos. H. Paist, 
RoBT. A. Welsh, 



Dennis F. Dealy, 
Jas. B. Alexander, 

"E. }. SWARTZ, 

Jos. Robinson, 
Chas. McClintock, 
F. W. Thomas, 
Robt. Friedlande, 
John Blakeley, 
John G. Ford, 
"Edmltnd Deacon. 



Governor Geary, on taking the chair, said : 

Fellow Citizens : — Having been called to preside over the deliberations of 
this vast and intelligent assembly, I desire to return to you my most sincere thanks 
for such an honorable compliment. 

We have met this evening, not for the purpose of rehearsing the oft -repeated 
stories of triumphant marches and victorious battle-fields, of squandered treasure and 
sacrificed human lives, but to hear and learn from the eloquent and distinguished 
gentlemen who will, in discussing one of the most important enterprises of the age, 
address us upon some of the most distinguishing physical features of our country, and 
in so doing illustrate its wonderful progress and material growth from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific ocean. 

Particular reference will doubtless be made to the various resources and 
advant gcs of that portion of the United States territory to be traversed by the 
Northern Pacific Railroad, now in process of construction. 

From the stern alarms of a recent civil war we turn with pleasure to the culti- 
vation and advancement of all the arts of peace, and the development of the match- 
less resources of our country. It is our desire to keep pace with all the laws of pro- 
gress in such manner as will guarantee life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to 
all who may desire to seek new homes in the magnificent territory about to be 
developed, whether they be to the "manor born" or are "strangers within our 
gates," and thus prove that " Peace hath victories no less renowned than war." 

Through the influence, wisdom and enterprise of some of the prominent mer- 
chants, i ankers and railroad men of Pennsylvania, the Northern Pacific Railroad 
will receive and discharge many of it passengers and much of it valuable freight in 
Philadelphia. It will make our State the great thoroughfare of nations, and our 
steamshi}) line to Europe will be an assured success. 

Pennsylvanians, therefore, should not be indifferent to the Northern Pacific 
Railroad, as they have their highest interests involved in its prompt prosecution 
and sj)eedy construction. 

In conclusion, fellow citizens, I invoke your earnest co-operation and assist- 
ance in this great work, by which, in addition to the subservance of personal "and 
local interests, the most distant portions of our country will not only be united and 
bound together with bonds of iron, but by the more indissoluble links of a common 
brotherhood. I have now the honor of introducing the orator of the evening, Hon. 
Williun 1). Kelley. 






Hon. William D. Kr.i.i.F.v, who was 
received with hearty and long-continued 
applause, said : 

I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for 
this very cordial reception, and beg leave 
to express my gratitude to the gentlemen 
who, by their invitation, have afforded 
me an opportunity to contribute, how- 
ever humbly, towards the completion of 
a work which, for more than a quarter of 
a century, I have regarded as of prime 
importance to the country, and of spe- 
cial value to my native city and State, 
and for the promotion of which, during 
that period, I have labored as opportu- 
nity offered. I do not expect the state- 
ment of facts I shall make to be accepted 
without many grains of allowance by 
those of my hearers who have not visited 
the trans-Missouri portion of our country; 
and shall not be surprised if mariy of 
you leave the hall with the opinion that 
I have dealt largely in exaggeration. 
Yet it is my purpose to speak within 
the limits of truth, and to make no state- 
ment that is not justified by my personal 
observation, or authorities that all are 
bound to recognize, or the concurrent 
statements of numbers of inhabitants of, 
and travellers through, the country of 
which I am to speak. 

The truth is, that however well informed 
a man may be and however large the grasp 
of his mind, if his life has been passed 
between the Atlantic and the Mississippi 
river, he cannot fully conceive the strange 
contrasts between the characteristics of 
the Atlantic and Pacific portions of our 



country. The difference in topography 
is marked, and recognized by all; but as 
to the subtle differences of climate, soil, 
temperature and atmosphere, experience, 
alone, can impart conviction. 

About two years ago, it was my privi- 
lege, in connection with my colleagues 
on the Committee of Ways Means of the 
National House of Representatives, to 
traverse the entire route of the Union and 
Central Pacific Road by daylight, and to 
visit Salt Lake City, which was, as all 
know, located in the heart of the "Great 
Desert," that it might be the centre of a 
Mormon emi)ire that avouUI be guarded 
by the forces of Nature against Oentile 
intrusion. After having somewhat studied 
California, with San Francisco as our 
head -quarters, we passed up the coast to 
the mouth of the Columbia river, along that 
beautiful stream to its confluence with the 
Willamette, and up the Willamette to 
Portland, Oregon, as a new point of dc- 
])arture for observation, visiting thence on 
one line of steamers, Oregon city, with its 
immense flouring and woolen mills, and 
on another, the grandeur {for beauty does 
not express it) of the Columbia river be- 
vond the Cascades and onward to the 
Dalles. Though that region had so long 
been a matter of interest to me, the study 
of which had afforded so much pleas- 
ure, each day revealed new and strange 
conditions, and imbued me with a fresh 
sense, not onlyofthe extent of our country, 
but of the grandeur and infinite variety 
of its resources and the beneficence and 
power of the Almighty, in adapting all 



PACIFIC RAILROAD HISTORY. 



parts of it to the sustenance and com- 
fort of man. But of this hereafter. 

Let me first invite your attention to 
facts within the memory of some of my 
auditors, which show that the resources 
of the new northwest and its adapta- 
bility to railroad purposes are not, as is 
sometimes intimated, of recent discovery, 
but have long been known, and that the 
route of the Northern Pacific Railroad 
is that originally proposed, because it 
is the shortest and best by which to con- 
nect the seaboard at Baltimore, Philadel- 
phia, New York, Boston and Portland, 
Me., with the waters of Puget Sound and 
the commerce of the ancient East, which 
is now the West, the march towards which, 
of American ideas is illustrating again 
the truth that, 
" Westward the course of empire takes its way." 

Pacific Railroad History. 

During the summer of 1845, twenty- 
six years ago, Asa Whitney, of New York, 
who had spent many years in China, and 
sought, by all such agencies as were at the 
command of private enterprise, informa- 
tion about the country lying between 
Lake Michigan and Puget Sound, did me 
the honor to seek my acquaintance and 
bring to my attention the subject of a 
railroad from the base of the Lake to 
some point in Oregon, on the waters of 
Puget Sound or the Columbia river, or to 
a point on each. The whole subject was 
new to me ; but Mr. Whitney came pre- 
pared to enlighten those who were igno- 
rant, and to inspire with faith those who 
doubted. His general views were in 
print, and embodied columns of statis- 
tics, obtained from official sources, and 
many facts reported by persons who had 
travelled more or less through the region 
which the proposed road was to traverse. 
The magnitude of the subject inspired me, 
and my enthusiasm for his great project 
induced Mr. Whitney, despite the dis- 
parity in our years, to favor me with fre- 
quent conferences, and to bring to my 
attention whatever information relating 



to the subject he obtained. Early in the 
year 1846, I felt justified, by the growth 
of sentiment in its favor, in undertaking 
to secure him an opportunity to present 
his project to a public meeting of the 
citizens of Philadelphia. To induce a 
sufficient number of gentlemen to act as 
officers of the meeting was the work of 
time. I found few who took an inte- 
rest in, or believed in the feasibility 
of, the project. Some said that a rail- 
road so far north would not be available 
for as many months in the year as 
the Pennsylvania canals were ; that it 
would be buried in snow more than half 
the year. Others cried, "What madness 
to talk of a railroad more than two thou- 
sand miles long through that wilderness, 
when it is impossible to build one over 
the Alleghanies ! ' ' [Laughter and ap- 
plause.] 

As I went from man to man with Mr. 
Whitney's invaluable collection of facts 
and figures, I discovered that the doubts 
with which the work must contend were 
infinite in number, and it was not until 
six months had elapsed that a sufficient 
number of well-known citizens to con- 
stitute the officers of a meeting had 
consented to sign the call for one and 
act as such. But patience and perse- 
veren<;e accomplish a good deal in this 
worlci. The cause had gained adherents, 
and, as I find by reference to the papers 
of that day, the meeting for which I had 
so long labored was held in the Chinese 
Mftseum, on the evening of December 
23d, 1846. Some of these, my venerable 
friends who sit around me, probably 
remember the occasion, as I see among 
them some who acted as officers. His 
Honor, John Swift, then Mayor of the 
city, presided. Col. James Page, Hons. 
Richard Vaux, William M. Meredith and 
John F. Belsterling, with Mr. David S. 
Brown and Mr. Charles B. Trego (all of 
whom still survive) were among the vice 
presidents; and Senator Wm. A. Crabb, 
now deceased, and William D. Kelley 
served as secretaries. The speakers were 



PALI lie KAII.ROAI) HISTORY. 



Messrs. Whitney, Josiah Randall, Peter 
A. Browne and William D. Kelley. 

Mayor Swift, with a few cautious 
words commendatory of his great en- 
terprise, introduced Mr. Whitney, who 
stated, with great clearness, his project, 
and the advantages that would result from 
its exec ution. It was, he said, to be a 
railroad from Lake Michigan to a point 
on navigable water in Oregon. He be- 
lieved that it could be constructed on a 
line about 2400 miles in length ; and that 
he ancl his associates hoped to be able to 
build it in twenty years, if the Government 
would grant sixty miles breadth of land for 
the whole distance. When asked how he 
would make land in that remote northern 
wilderness available for the building of a 
road, he described the character of the 
climate, and showed that north of the 
forty-ninth degree of north latitude, and 
in valleys extending up to the fifty-sixth 
degree, the climate was in summer as 
genial as that of Southern Pennsylvania; 
and asserted emphatically that a railroad 
through that section would be less ob- 
structed by snow than one through Cen- 
tral New York or Pennsylvania. 

His scheme was to organize a vast sys- 
tem of immigration from the cities of the 
Eastern States and from Europe ; the work- 
men were to be paid in part in land, and a 
cori« was to be detailed to prepare a part 
of each farm for cultivation the next year, 
so that when the laborers of the .seconil 
year should go forward they would leave 
behind them those of the first as farmers 
r^j\c\ guardsmen of the road ; by this pro- 
cess many millions of poor ami opj)ressed 
people would be lifted to the dignity of 
free-holding American citizens, and the 
great route for the commerce of the world 
would be established amid the develop- 
ment of the boundless resources of the 
yet new Northwest. (Applause.) 

At the close of an eloquent address, 
the late Josiah Randall, Esq., submitted 
a series of resolutions, from which I 
quote the following, which were heartily 
adopted : 



"\Vlicrcas, the completion of a r.iilroad from l.ake 
Micliii^jaii to tlic Pacific would secure the carrying 
of the greater portion of the commerce of tlie world 
to American enterprise, and open to it tlie markets 
of Jajian and the vast empire of China, of all India, 
and of all the islands of the I'acitic an<l Indian 
Oceans, tojjcther with those of the Western Coast 
of Mexico and South .America; 

And, where.as, we have in our public lands a 
fund sufticient for and appropriate to the construc- 
tion of so great and beneficent a work ; and the 
proposition of Asa Whitney, Ks<|., of New York, 
to construct a railroad from Lake .Michigan to the 
Pacific for the grant of ri strijxjf land 6oniiIes wide, 
offers a feasible and cheap, if not the only plan for 
the early comjiletion of an avenue from ocean to 
ocean ; therefore, 

" Reschrd, That we cordially approve of the 
project of -Vsa Whitney, Ksq., for the construction 
of a railroad to the Pacific, and respectfully petition 
Congress to grant or set apart, bet'ore the close of 
the jiresent session, the lands prayed for by Mr. 
Whitney for this purpose." 

It was also resolved to send copies of 
the resolutions and proceedings of the 
meeting to our senators and members of 
Congress, and to the Governor of the 
Commonwealth, with the request that he 
would bring the subject to the attention 
of the Legislature. 

Encouraged by this success, Mr. Whit- 
ney visited other cities, and brought his 
plans before the people. On the 4th of 
January, 1847, he addressed an immense 
meeting in the Tabernacle, New York, 
which was presided over by the mayor and 
participated in by the leading men of that 
city. His remarks were listened to, but 
at their close a mob took possession of 
the hall and denounced the project as a 
swindle, declaring thas it was an attempt 
on the part of a band of conspirators to 
defraud the people by inducing the Gov- 
ernment to make an immense grant of 
land for an impracticable project. 

This was the initial movement of a 
powerful and organized opposition, before 
which Mr. Whitney retired, silenced in 
his effort to promote one of the grandest 
works ever conceived by an .American citi- 
zen. (Applause.) Hut his labors had not 
been in vain. On the 23d of June, 1848, 
Hon. James Pollock, the present Direc- 
tor of the United States Mint, who does 
me the honor to listen to me. and who 
was then in Congress from this State, as 



THE PENNSYLVANIA CENTRAL ROAD. 



chairman of a special committee ap- 
pointed in accordance with a resolution 
he had offered, presented a favorable 
report on the project of a Pacific Rail- 
road, recommending that steps be taken 
to secure adequate explorations and sur- 
veys of the trans-Mississippi country. 
The "madness" of the project was still 
laughed at even by "grave and rever- 
ened" senators; and it was not until the 
3d of March, 1853, that the President 
signed an act authorizing the Secretary 
of War, under his direction, "to employ 
such portion of the corps of topographi- 
cal engineers and such other persons as 
he may deem necessary to make such 
explorations and surveys as he may deem 
advisable, to ascertain the most practi- 
cable and economical route for a railroad 
from the Mississippi river to the Pacific 
ocean." Effect was given to this resolu- 
tion at the earliest day, but it was not 
until the 27th of February, 1855, that the 
Secretary of War was able to submit to 
the President, for communication to Con- 
gress, the reports of the several surveying 
parties. The first of these reports were 
given to the public by order of Congress 
in the latter part of that year. They fill 
thirteen large quarto volumes, and I shall 
have occasion to refer to them hereafter. 

The Pennsylvania Central Road. 

As experience is a trusted teacher it may 
be well to pause and examine the condi- 
tion of the railroad interests of the 
country at that time. At the close of 
1846, we had 4930 miles of road in opera- 
tion, 297 of which had been completed 
during that year. A system of con- 
tinuous railroad had not been proposed. 
Until about that time the function of 
railroads had been assumed to be to 
connect water-courses. Thus the Co- 
lumbia Railroad constructed by our State 
'authorities, connected the waters of the 
Pennsylvania canals with those of the 
Delaware river ; the Camden and Amboy 
road connected the waters of the Dela- 



ware with those of the Raritan ; from 
Philadelphia to Baltimore, until 183S, 
communication was by steamboat from 
Philadelphia to Newcastle, thence by 
rail to Frenchtown, thence by steamboat 
to Baltimore. The route from Boston to 
New York was by railroad from Boston 
to Providence, and by steamboat thence 
to New York. These connecting links 
of road soon developed a commerce, not 
equal to their capacity but beyond that 
of available water conveyance, and thus 
demonstrated the necessity of a more 
general resort to roads. Hence the 
subject of the expansion of our system 
was attracting attention. The construc- 
tion of the Pennsylvania Central road 
was under consideration. On the 3d of 
April, 1846, the Legislature, after much 
and violent controversy, had consented to 
give the madcaps, who were willing to 
engage in such a project, a charter; but 
to prevent them from practising fraud, 
by peddling the franchise or holding it 
for sinister purposes, the act required 
that $2,500,000 of stock should be sub- 
scribed, and that the enormous sum of 
$250,000 should be paid in before the 
issuing of letters patent. Most of you, 
doubtless, suppose that the requisite sub- 
scription was obtained at once. No ; 
nearly twelve months were required to 
induce the enterprising men of Phila- 
delphia to risk two millions and a half of 
dollars in building a road over the iVlle- 
ghanies. "The grades on the road," it 
was said, "would be impracticable; the 
heavy snows and long winter would render 
the road unavailable ; the project was a 
mad one." Those only who remember 
the efforts required to induce the people 
of Pennsylvania to make that small sub- 
scription would believe the story, could it 
be faithfully told. The active young men 
of this day would regard it as a pungent 
satire. 

Town meetings were held, and "block- 
committees" were appointed, by whom 
citizens were solicited to subscribe for 
five shares or three or one, for the sake of 



TIIK I'KNNSVI.NANMA CENIKAL KOAI). 



the experiment, even though the invest- 
ment might be unproductive. Meet- 
ings of draymen and porters were held, 
and they were sliown that if each would 
take a share, it would help the enterprise ; 
that if the road should prove a success 
they would get good interest on their 
money with great increase of business ; 
and if not, it W(nild have been wisely 
spent in promoting an enterprise which, 
in the judgment of many good men, 
promised great benefit to the City and 
State. 

1 have sjjoken of the business men of 
Philadelphia, but the appeal was not to 
them alone ; it w;us to the people of 
Pennsylvania. This was to be a Penn- 
sylvania road, and by the act of incor- 
poration the commissioners for receiving 
subscriptions were reipiir&d to open books 
at Pittsburg, HoUidaysburg, Harrisburg, 
and all the chief towns along the line of 
the road, as well as in Philadelphia; and 
the energy, enterprise, and capital of the 
whole State stood ai)palled.at the magni- 
tude and doubtful character of an under- 
taking to byild a continuous line of 
railroad from Philailelphia to Pittsburg. 

It was not until the 30th of March, 
1847, ^^'t three days less than one year 
from the granting of the charter that the 
]jetty subscription required was obtained, 
letters patent issued, and a board of direc- 
tors organized. And it remained for some 
time thereafter a grave (piestion whether 
capital could be obtained by subscription 
or loan to complete the road. ' 

But by the micldle of October, 1850, a 
single track was conii)leted from Harris- 
burg, its then point of departure, to 
HoUidaysburg, at the foot of the Alle- 
ghany mountains. The triuiniih was im- 
mense; and on the iSth of October, 1S50, 
the event was celel)rated by an excursion, 
which was enjoyed by many prominent 
business men and other friends of the 
road. In the evening a meeting w.xs held 
over a pleasant dinner, at which I remem- 
ber my friend. General Patterson (jwint- 
ing to the general, who sat on the stage in 



company with Governor Geary), and his 
friend, old General Riley, were speakers. 
The late President lUichanan and Joseph 
R. Ingersoll, K<,(\., also deceased, spoke. 
At the close of a very brilliant spee( h, 
my friend, Morton McMichael, Kscp, 
did me the honor to introduce me as one 
who had been an early and efli( ient 
friend of the road. 

From a musty copy of the North Ameri- 
can now before me, I find that, among 
other things, I expressed my pritle " in 
the fact that I wa.s a Philadelphian, a 
member of that community which, with 
aid from but a single township — that 
of Allegheny — had, in the face of a host 
of discouragements, embarked their capi- 
tal, enterprise, energy and skill in the 
construction of the magnificent road o\er 
which we had travelled that day, and 
which, though not yet comiiletcd. wii^ 
sufficiently advanced to earn in a few 
years, the means for its completion, 
should they not be supjilied from other 
sources." And, alluding to what was 
then my favorite project, 1 said : 

"The Enj;lisli ni.ail for Calcutl.a will yet tr.nvel 
over our reiiiisylvania K.Tilroiul, and its iron HIk 
will groan inuler the weij^ht of commodities p.iss- 
ing to and fro between the 250,000,000 of people 
east of the Atlantic and the 750,000,000 west of 
the I'acific. The discovery of our Continent by 
Columbus wxs accidental; but the builders of this 
road and its several continuations through the 
Western Slates are vindicating his sagacity, lie 
sailed due west from Europe to find a shorter 
route to the wealth of India. Me w.is right; the 
fact that he encountered a continent did not in- 
cre.i-se the distance between tiie jxiints; it did but 
demonstrate the necessity for a new mode of con- 
veyance. This the railroad and locomotive sup- 
ply. The pxssage of the two oceans by ste.^ni and 
the crossing of our country on a railroad will re- 
duce the time requisite for a voyage fnjni London 
to Canton to less than thirty days. 

"Columbus was no enthusiast. He looked 
calmly and gravely at facts, ami sjxike the words 
of sober wisdom; and so, let folly sneer as it may, 
do those who speak of the I'ennsylvania road as a 
link in \ chain of commercial facilities which is to 
girdle the earth." [.\pplause.] 

.\nd again : ' ^ 

"The Mississippi Valley is not our Western 
country, nor is the I'acilic coast of our country the 
'far West' we look to. Colundms would go west 
to the Indies; and we will do it. The riches of 
our West, now the world's East, will lade our 



12 



A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 



road, stimulate our agriculture, develop our vast 
mineral resources, quicken and expand our enter- 
prise, and drop their fatness tlirougliout our bor- 
ders." [Applause.] 

I find that, when somewhat laughed at 
for this outburst of subdued enthusiasm, 
I replied by saying : 

" Why, you can find in Philadelphia to-day 
more men clamorous for a road from St. Louis to 
San Francisco than you could who believed in 
the possibility of constructing a continuous road 
over the mountains hence to Pittsburg six years 
ago." 

This, you will remember, was after the 
acquisition of California and the dis- 
covery of her gold-fields. 

A Quarter of a Ceiitury. 

But to return to 1846, a quarter of 
a century ago. Let no man think that 
the Pacific Railroad then projected was 
to run to San Francisco, or elsewhere 
than to the heart of the unorganized 
Territory of Oregon, which extended 
from the 42d to the 49th parallel of lati- 
tude, and embraced what is now the 
State of Oregon and Washington Terri- 
tory, into which no settlers had yet gone. 

There was then no San Francisco. 
Not a cabin or hut stood within tlie now 
corporate limits of that beautiful and 
prosperous city. California, Nevada, 
Arizona and New Mexico, were still 
Mexican territory. Neither science nor 
observation had detected the deposits of 
gold and silver, or the agricultural capa- 
bilities of that vast region of country. 
The great railroad centre of the West, Chi- 
cago, had not yet come into public view. 
The less than 10,000 people who had 
gathered at the confluence of the Chicago 
river with Lake Michigan had no presenti- 
ment that the swamp in which they dwelt 
would, in less than twenty years, be filled 
up and raised nearly twenty feet, to provide 
drainage for the streets of the most enter- 
prising and remarkable city in the world, 
*f its age. Michigan then had a popu- 
lation ot less than 250,000, and Wisconsin 
and Iowa each but 100,000; and civili- 
zation had not yet penetrated the wide 



region then known as Minnesota territory, 
where the census takers, four years later, 
found but 6,038 people. Four years later 
there were but 91,635 people in California, 
which had then been ceded to us by 
Mexico, and admitted to the Union as a 
State, and whose recently discovered 
deposits of gold had attracted immigrants 
from every clime. There was no govern- 
ment in Kansas and Nebraska, that whole 
fertile region being in possession of the 
Indian and the buffalo. The name of 
that busy centre of river and railroad 
commerce, Omaha, had not been heard 
by English-speaking people, and the vast 
mineral, grazing and agricultural region 
through which the Union and Central 
Pacific railroad is now doing a profit- 
able and rapidly increasing business, was 
noted by geographers as the "Great 
American Desert." Philadelphia had 
no railroad connection with Pittsburg, 
Pittsburg none with Cincinnati or Chi- 
cago, nor any of these with St. Louis. 
The northwestern part of our State was 
known as the "wild-cat country," in 
which it was regarded as a misfortune to 
own land unless it was timbered and on 
the banks of a mountain stream ; and 
properties in that wide section in which 
coal and petroleum have since been 
discovered were sold every few years for 
taxes, because people could not afford to 
own land in such a cold, mountainous, 
unproductive and inaccessible country. 
[Laughter and applause.] 

Surely the world moves and time does 
work wonders. What railroads we have 
you know ; what railroads we are to have 
you only begin to suspect. In Europe, dur- 
ing this quarter of a century, dynasties and 
the boundaries of empires have changed, 
but the increase of population has been 
scarcely perceptible. The oppressions of 
the feudal past linger there, and cannot 
be shaken off. But here, where man is 
free, and nature offers boundless returns 
to enterprise, broad empires have risen, 
embracing towns, cities, and states ; and 
millions of people born in many lands 



THE NORTHERN PACIFIC KAII.ROAD. 



13 



with poverty and oppression as their only 
birthright, are now, as American citizens, 
enjoying all the comforts and refinements 
of civilization, and with cajjital rivaling 
that of European jjrinces, originating and 
j)ressing forward great enterprises which 
are in the next (piarter of a century 
to work more marvellous changes than 
any I have alluded to. Yes, ladies and 
gentlemen, were supernal })ower to unfold 
to our view our country as it shall be a 
quarter of a ( entury hence, the most far- 
seeing and sanguine of us would regard 
the reality as a magnificent delusion. Our 
extension of territory and law, great as it 
has been, is of small consequence in com- 
parison with the achievements of mind in 
the empire of science and art, whereby 
man is enabled to produce ten-fold, and in 
many departments of productive industry, 
a hundred-fold as much as he could 
twenty-five years ago by the same amount 
of labor. New roads are to be built ; new 
towns, cities and states to be created ; 
new resources developed ; and the slug- 
gish people of the Orient are to be 
awakened to their own interests and 
induced to contribute their vast share 
to the jirogress and commerce of the 
world. The vision that filled the soul 
of Columbus was a grand one ; but that 
which opens to our view, and should pos- 
sess and animate us, is as much grander 
and more beneficent as the civilization 
and arts of the close of the 19th are 
superior to those of the dawning days 
of the 14th century. 

The A'orthcrn Facifii Railroad. 

I regard the construction of the North- 
ern Pacific Railroad as < hief among the 
great works of the future, and believe 
that while it will be a magnifit ent monu- 
ment to its builders and promoters, and 
abundantly reward their enterprise and 
labor, its construction will add incon- 
ceivably to the wealth, jjower and influ- 
ence of the nation. It will open to 



settlement under the homestead and 
pre-emption laws a territory that wuuld 
accommodate all the peasantry of Europe, 
and, by the development of its boundless 
and varied mineral and agricultural re- 
sources, lift millions of men from poverty 
to wealth, and enable many who are 
burdens upon society to bless it by their 
prosperity. [Applause.] 

These are well considered convictions. 
If I am mistaken, I have, a.s I have shown 
you, cherished the delusion through the 
greater part of my manhood ; and* the 
study of many authorities, much inter- 
course with men, and extended travel 
have only served to confirm it. Nor do 
I now express them for the first time. On 
the 26th of April, 1866, a l)ill proposing 
to authorize the government to aid in the 
construction of the Northern Pacific Rail- 
road was under consideration by Con- 
gress, and I participated in the discussion. 
IJy reference to the Glolu-, I find, that after 
having characterized the construction of 
the road as a matter of not only Na- 
tional, but world-wide importance, I said : 

" From Lake Superior to Puget Sotiiul I .\ 
railroad stretching from Lake Superior to Pnget 
Sniind. a tliMancc of 1800 miles! To open to 
civilization an empire longer and broader than 
\Vtstcrn F-uro))e. from the southern vinelands of 
sunny Spain on tlie one hand to the hyperhorean 
forests of Norway on the other I Yes. sir; an 
empire eipial in extent to England, Ireland, Scot- 
land, France, l?elgium,the flernian States, .\usiria, 
Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, 
Norway, .Sjiain and Portugal. 

"We fail, Mr. Speaker, to understand our re- 
lations to the age in which we live and our duties 
to mankind, l>ecause we fail to appreciate the 
grand dimensions and unimagined resources of 
our country. We would regard ourselves as 
giants did we estimate ourselves in pro))orti<'n to 
]iossessions so grand in a coimtn," so alH>unding in 
multifoiTn resources, so undevelope<l, and so 
spai"sely settled. 

'• The region through which it is projx><:c<l to 
construct this ro.-id, exceeding in extent all the 
countries I have named, also emlnKlies more 
mineral wealth than they all comhined ever ihis- 
scssed. lUit what is its condition ? It is a wil- 
derness. Almost every acre of it is still innocent 
of iIk- tread of a tax collector. It yields the 
(iovernment no revenue. Along the Pacihc co.i^ 
a few thriving villages dot it. Some of them will 
one day Ik* great cities, but they arc now on the 
borders of a vast wilderness." 



14 



COMPARED WITH OTHER ROUTES. 



Compared with Other Routes. 

But there are those who, Avhile admitting 
the vast extent and wonderful resources of 
the country, assert that it is unfit for occu- 
pancy by communities by reason of its high 
latitude and the altitude of its mountains. 
They present all the objections that were 
made to the construction of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad. "The mountains are 
too high," "the snows are too deep, 
and lie too long!" Are not these objec- 
tion:^ as groundless in this case as they 
were in that ? Let us see. Government 
surveys and other observations show, 
beyond reasonable question, that a rail- 
road between the 46th and 49th parallels 
will have a better route than any other 
road north of the 3 2d degree, which 
line has the drawback of a summer climate 
that is so nearly tropical as to interfere 
witii travel and the general transit of 
goods. I am convinced that the country 
through which the Northern Pacific Rail- 
road is to pass will, twenty-five years 
hence, contain double the population that 
will then be found along the line of the 
road which connects Omaha and Sacra- 
mento. Indeed I believe I would be 
within the bounds of reasonable prediction 
if I made my proposition embrace the 
continuation of the road from the City of 
Sacramento to San Francisco, notwith- 
standing the wondrous attractions Cali- 
fornia presents to those who are seeking a 
new home and more profitable field for 
enterprise. 

The Central route must create its way 
traffic; none awaited its construction. 
From Omaha to Sacramento not a navi- 
gable stream crosses the route of the 
Union and Central road ; nor does one 
approacli it. Let me not be understood 
as disparaging the value of this road, 
or as intimating that it is not already 
doing a profitable business, or that it 
yill not, as every other railroad. in this 
country has done, create a constantly 
increasing volume of business that will 
enable it to rapidly decrease its rates 



for freight and travel, while increasing 
its income and net profits. Indeed it is 
already doing this, and its present charges 
for freight and travel compare very favor- 
ably with those of 1869. 

Yes, it has its way business to create, 
and is doing it rapidly. Witness the 
two branch roads already constructed, 
one from Denver to Cheyenne, and the 
other from Salt Lake City to Ogden. 
Before the main line was built, who 
dreamed of railroads along either of those 
valleys? Behold, also, the enormous de- 
velopment of the coal and iron fields at 
Evanston, a little west of Cheyenne, and 
more than 500 miles west of Omaha. 
Two years ago the fact was proudly 
announced that both coal and iron had 
been discovered at Evanston ; and now 
the place is marked by the smoke and din 
of forges, furnaces, rolling-mills, machine 
shops, and preparations are making for 
the manufacture of Bessemer steel rails, 
the construction of the works having 
been commenced. [Applause.] 

Look, too, at the marvellous develop- 
ment by "gentile" hands of the silver 
mines in southern Utah, to which the 
Mormons, Brigham Young having driven 
the first spike about a fortnight ago, are 
extending their branch road in order to 
carry silver ore, the transportation of 
which from the mines to Swansea, Eng- 
land, taxes it ^40 a ton. This tax will 
be saved when some American shall be 
enterprising enough to put up smelting 
works in a country in which coal and 
rich ores abound. Yes, British vessels 
coming to New York and Philadelphia 
with salt or iron return freighted with 
the ores of southern Utah, because we 
have not the enterprise to smelt it. 

Look, again, at the development of 
the wool trade. In many of the valleys 
along the line of the Central and Union 
road there are flocks numbering not thirty, 
not fifty, not a hundred sheep, as in the 
old States, but thoTisands ; and some flocks 
numbering more than ten thousand head 
now range valleys in the very heart of the 



GROWTH OF RAILROAD TRAFFIC. 



IS 



"Great American Desert," where it was 
supjtosed civilization would never find an 
abode. 

What a field for genius, enter|)rise and 
industry ! It will, at no distant day, 
swann with men of grit. There are thou- 
sanils of young men in this city filling 
small offices, or in some other way 
picking up a precarious living, getting 
through the world somehow, never know- 
ing whether both ends will meet at the end 
of any month, who, were they to go to this 
country, carrying with them the know- 
ledge gained in our furnaces, machine 
shops or factories, would in a few years 
find themselves at the head of large estab- 
lishments and commanding hundreds of 
emi)loyees. [Applause.] I rejoice in the 
fact that the Grand Army of the Republic 
is organizing one-armed and one-legged 
soldiers to go and settle in colonies upon 
the i)ublic lands, on the theory that their 
wives and children will share their labors 
in securing a homestead and honest inde- 
pendence. The scheme is as judicious as 
it is noble, and the poor disabled fellows 
will, I doubt not, in a few years write back 
to their less energetic but immutilated 
comrades to come and work for and be 
fed and clotheil b\ them. [Laughter and 
applause.] 

These branch roads and expanding 
industries are but some of the many pre- 
cursors and sure pledges of the immense 
sources of traffic that are to rise along a 
road, the drinking water for many of 
whose agents, as well as for the sup|)ly of 
many of its engines, is brought in tanks 
over alkaline plains for hundreds of 
miles, and one of the summits of whi( h, 
at Sherman, is a liiile and a-half above the 
topmost spire of Thiladelphia, antl 3285 
feet higher than the most elevated sum- 
mit on the Northern road. — that at Deer 
Lodge Pass. 

Gro7Vth of Railroad Traffic. 

That this road will create business for 
itself, and speedily return the capital 
embarked in its construction I am abun- 



dantly ])crsuaded. This opinion is con- 
firmed by the highest authority on such 
questions known to railroad men in this 
country, H. V. Poor, Esq., who, in his 
admiral)le sketch of the railroads of the 
United States, published hist year, says: 

" It is safe to estimate that the railroad tonnage 
of the country would dui)licate itself as often as 
once in ten years, were there no increase of line 
or population, from the progress made in its indus- 
tries and in the mechanic arts." 

Mr. Poor amply sustains this jjroposi- 
tion by facts deduced from the railroatl 
history of the country, and says: 

" Our means will increase just in the degree in 
whicli we render available the wealtli that now 
lies dormant in our soil." 

Speaking of the year 1869, he says: 

" The tonnage traffic of the railroads constructed 
the jxast year, at only one thousand tons to the 
mile, will ecpial live million tons, having a value 
of 5750,000,000! Kvery road constructed adds 
five times its value to tlie aggregate value of the 
])roperty of the country. The cost of the works 
constructed the p.xst year will equal at least 
S 1 50,000,000. The increased value, conse»iuently, 
of property due to the construction will cijual 
§600,000,000." 

These observations of Mr. Poor are 
specially a])plicable to the Northern 
Pacific Road, the construction of which 
will not only create an immense vol- 
ume of through travel, but develop a 
region not exceeded in native wealth by 
any etpial area on the face of the globe ; 
which aboimds in the i)reci<)tis and other 
metals, in wheat-lands and lumber forests, 
and embraces the nattiral home of the 
sheep and goat, and grazing fields in 
which herds of cattle large enough to 
supply our entire market, may graze 
throughout the year, growing and fatten- 
ing upon natural grasses, which in the 
dry atmosphere of the country, do not 
decompose as ours do when exposed to 
the weather, but (tire where they grow, 
and feed herds of bt>(T;ilo, elk, antelojie 
and mountain sheep the year round. 

The New Northwest. 

Minnesota, through which the road 
will be completed by October, from 
Lake Superior to the Red river, 266 miles, 



i6 



THE NEW NORTHWEST. A GENIAL CLIMATE. 



is the great wheat field of our country. 
It is a land of lakes and rivers, of forest 
and prairie. Its farmers are prosperous 
and contented. Its population numbered 
6077 in 1850; had swollen to 172,022 by 
i860; and was found to be 436,057 in 
1870. The value of its farm products 
as reported by the census of 1870 was 
$33,350,923; the cash value of its farms 
597,621,691 ; and its production of wheat 
during 1869 wasabout 19,000,000 bushels. 
It contains (listen, young men who are 
working for wages,) 53,459,840 acres, of 
which but 3,637,671 are occupied. The 
remaining 50,000,000 await your com- 
ing for their development. [Applause.] 
It is not yet fourteen years since the lum- 
bermen of Minnesota were fed on wheat 
imported from other States. Yet the 
wheat crop raised during 1870, from the 
small part of the State then occupied, is 
believed to' have been not less than 
30,000,000 bushels. Time will not per- 
mit me even to indicate the immense 
resources of this State in lumber, iron, 
slate, and other commodities, that bear 
transportation ; and I leave Minnesota 
with the remark that when the winter 
traveler westward on the Northern Pacific 
Railroad, shall leave her limits and cross 
the Red river of the North, he will leave 
behind him the coldest part of the road 
and that most liable to obstruction by 
snow. . The only other point at which he 
will, even under exceptional circumstan- 
ces, meet with as great a depression of the 
mercury will be in the neighborhood of 
Fort Stevenson, in Central Dakota. 

A Genial Climate. 

How, ladies and gentlemen, shall I 
help you to understand something about 
the climate of the country west of Min- 
nesota ? To us of the East it seems in- 
credible that the temperature of the 
mountains, along a line running between 
the 47th and 49th parallels should be so 
mild ; yet so it is ; and the climate of 
Washington Territory, along the 49th 
parallel, is more equable the year round, 



and milder in winter than that of Phila- 
delphia or Baltimore. Indeed, the mean 
temperature at Olympia, at the head of 
Puget Sound, is that of Norfolk, Va., but 
the dwellers on the Sound are strangers 
alike to the extreme heat of a Virginia 
summer and the extreme cold of its win- 
ter. There cattle are not housed at any 
season, and thrive upon the grasses they 
find on the plains. In the western valleys 
of Washington Territory, winter is un- 
known. Snow comes occasionally to re- 
mind settlers of what they used to see 
in the States of the East ; but it never 
lies. But once since 1S47, when the 
first settlements were made, have cattle 
been deprived by snow for three consecu- 
tive days, of the natural pasture furnished 
throughout the winter months west of the 
mountains in Washington Territory and 
Oregon. 

The winter climate upon the mountains 
of Idaho, Montana and Dakota is more 
severe ; but in their valleys the buffalo, 
elk and antelope have been accustomed 
to winter ; and domestic cattle, worn by 
labor in the service of exploring expedi- 
tions and transportation companies, are 
turned into the valleys and herded, and 
come out in the spring fat and ready for 
another tour of duty. This is so incon- 
sistent with our experience, that I beg 
leave to fortify the statement with a sin- 
gle authority, the equal to which I could 
produce by scores. I will, however, con- 
tent myself with a brief extract from the 
report of explorations of the Yellowstone, 
made by Gen. Reynolds, of the Engineer 
Corps of the U. S. Army, who wintered, 
in i860, in the valley of Deer Creek, 
in which the Northern Pacific Road will 
attain its greatest elevation and cross the 
Rocky Mountains On this subject he says : 

"Throughout the whole of the season's march, 
tlie subsistence of our animals had been obtained 
by graziUf^ after we had reached camp in the after- 
noon, and for an hour or two between the dawn of 
day and our time of starting. The consetiuence 
was that when we reached our winter ciuarters 
there were but few animals in the train tliat were 
in a condition to have continued the march with- 
out a generous grain diet. Poorer and more broken 



WOOL AND BEET-ROOT SUGAR, 1 7 

clown crcituros it would he difticiilt to find. In territories, \vhi( il extend frcjlil the 321I to 

the spriiiij all were in as fine condition (or com- .v , .1 11 .1 fi,„,, .,.-.» •.<.,. .i:.>.-1tr 

'. " ., , , 111 1 • 1 the 40th parallel, thev are i)e( uliarly 

mencint; nnother season s work as could he desired. ty 1 t , 1^ / 

A greater change in their appearance could not adapted tO sheep culture. With their 

have heen produced, even if they had heen grain- settlement WC shall become the greatest 
fed and stahledioused all winter. 0/i/y one' was 1 1 • r »i 1 i 

los(, the furious storm of DecemI.er coming on he- wool-prodlicing country of the world, 

fore it had gained sufficient strength to endure it. though Our present l)roduction gives but 

This fact, that seventy exhausttd anima.'s turned ^^^^^\\ promise of SUC h a result. The 
out to 7i<inter on the plants on the first of A'oTe»i- . . , 1 1 • r 

ber, came out in the best condition, and with the SOUrcCS and amount of the WOOl-clip of 

loss 0/ but one, is the most forcible commentary I 1868 were in rOUnd figures aboUt OS fol- 

can make on the quality of the grass and the char- if..„c . 
acter of the winter.''' 

m, . •,-,,, 1 POUNDS. 

Ih.s seems incredd)le, but many de- ^^.^^^^^ ^^^^^ Ameri. an 

grees to the north of our territories are Provinces, .... 10,000,000 

immense valleys, which, if the testimony Australia, South Amer- 

of British officers, civil and military, of ica, and Africa, . . 76,000,000 

missionaries and settlers who have dwelt United States, .... 100,000,000 

there for years, may be believed, rival Spain, Portugal and Italy, . 110,000,000 

Minnesota in wheat-producing capacity, }7'''"'~'-'' ^ '. ' " ' -'-3.000,000 

J , r. 1 Mr 1 • . n- Kuropeau RussKi, . . . 125,000,000 

and eastern Oregon and Washington ler- --- ' ^^^ 

.^ ° dermanv, 200,000,000 

ritory in the mildness of their mean tem- (;reat Britain, . . . .260,000,000 

perature. Exploration and settlement Asia, 470,000,000* 

have a])olished "The Great American ^',,^,^ jj appears that Asia, Australia, 
Desert," of which these territories formed .^f^ica and South America, which furnish 
a conspicuous part, and it no longer finds ^^ g^,^,, markets for mutton as the com- 
a place on maps. And the Mormons niercial and manufuturing centres of Ku- 
have demonstrated that by conducting ^^^^^ ,^,^^j ^,^5^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^, ^,,^^^^ ^,,^.^j, 
the melting snow of the mountains to the ^^^^^ ^^ ^.^j^^j ^^^ ^^e wool alone, are its 
foot-hills and valleys, the whole region can ^^^^^ producers. Why is wool chief 
be made to bloom as the rose, and bear ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^ South Amer- 
crops of cereals, roots and fruit equal to j^^, ^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^ 
those yielded by the best flirms in the same conditions as our territories. Why 
choice valleys of Pennsylvania. ^^ Australia built up a great city more 
Wool and Bed- Root Stii^ar. by its wool trade than its gold? It is be- 
Since these apparently inhospitable cause her sheep walks are dry and covered 
regions have been penetrated by rail- with bunch gra.ss, which cures itself in the 
roads, and mining adventure has created ^^'1 ^ ''»'^ '^ the case in our territories. Why 
settlements up even to the northern boun- <Jo<^s Asia produ« e more wool than Great 
dary of Dakota, Montana and Idaho, we Britain and Germany together, and al- 
are discovering why we have not sue- most as much as Great Britain, Germany 
ceeded in raising wool, and why we are -I'lil the United States? It is because the 
still, while boasting of our agricultural grasses of the elevated plains on which her 
productions, dependent upon non-manu- countless flocks of sheep and goats range 
facturing countries which are not famed -ire the same nutritious, aromatic gntsses 
for their agricultural resources or skill, for "pon which the elk, the buffalo and the 
our supply of wool. The reason is found mountain sheep have fed through all time 
in the fact that we have not carried flocks "P"" '''\\\q Great American Desert" of 
to those portions of our country whi( h America. [Applause.] 
are pre-eminently adapted to the support Under the impulse given to this inter- 
of wool-bearing animals. est by the Union and Central road, flocks 
Mountainous and volcanic as are our numbering thousands, collected in Illi- 



WOOL AND BEET-ROOT SUGAR. 



nois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and more eastern 
States have been transferred to such plains 
and valleys as are accessible by the road, 
and where the expense of raising sheep is 
but the cost of the first flock and of 
herding. There the finest wool may be 
produced, and with increasing railroad 
facilities, mining, manufacturing, and 
commercial centers will furnish markets 
for mutton, and add to the wool grower's 
profits. To say that the wool-clip of the 
United States, as shown by the census of 
i8So, will exceed that of Great Britain is 
not to offer a prediction, but to assert a 
foregone conclusion ; and it is also safe 
to say that the clip of that year will em- 
brace not only wool of all grades of sheep, 
but of the Cashmere, Angora and other 
goats, the value of whose hair is so well 
known to manufacturers and merchants. 
But more than this, remembering the 
rapidity with which flocks increase, I 
predict that at an early day our wool 
clip will equal that of Asia,* which will 



* On the day after the delivery of the text, my 
attention was invited to the following striking con- 
firmation of my views furnished by M. Alcan, Pro- 
fessor of Spinning and Weaving at the Conserva- 
toire Imperial des Arts, &c. 

APPROXIMATE PRODUCTION OF WOOLS IN 1 866. 

[Translated from Alcan's " Etudes sur les Arts 
Textile a I'Exposition Universalle de 1867" for 
the April number of the Bulletin of the National 
Association of Wool Manufacturers.] 

" The quantity of the production of wools in 
weight may be i-eckoned approximately by the 
number of sheep in each country. We estimate 
the sheep at the numbers indicated in the follow- 
ing table : 



France, . . , . . 

Algeria, 

Russia, . . . . 

England, 

Austria, 

Prussia, Zollverein, 

Ottoman Empire, . 

Australia, 

Cape of Good Hope, 

New Zealand, 

The Equator or la Plata, 

Spain, . . , . 

Italy, . . . . 

Belgium, 

Tlie Low Countries, 

Portugal, 



Total, 



NO. OF SHEEP. 

. 30,000,000 

10,000,000 

. 54,000,000 

. 26,376,000 

27,000,090 

. 24,000,000 

. 32,000,000 

. 35,000,000 

. 12,000,000 

15,000,000 

. 30,000,000 

. 20,000,090 

8,500,000 

3,000,000 

1,500,000 

2,417,000 

330.783,000 



insure us supremacy in the manufacture 
of the entire range of woolen and worsted 
goods. 

And with this increased production of 
wool, will come another great industry. 
You will question my judgment when I 
tell you that the territory along the 46th, 
47th, 48th and 49th degrees of latitude 
high up the mountain sides is to be a 
great sugar-producing country. Yet as 
sure as that the world moves and science 
helps man to supply his wants cheaply, 
the country along the routes of the Union 
and Central and the Northern Pacific 
Railroads will in a few years produce im- 
mense quantities of sugar. Of course, I 
speak of beet-root sugar, the manufacture 
of which will thrive not only along our 
northern boundary, but in the more north- 
ern settlements of the Assineboine and 
Saskatchewan valleys as it does in Russia, 
Sweden and Norway ; as it is already do- 
ing in California, Illinois and Wisconsin, 
and will do in all of the States of the 
Northwest. Many causes conspire to 
make the introduction of this industry 
into our country a necessity ; and in the 
region of cheap land, abundant fuel and 
pure water from the mountain snows, in 
which the cost of transportation more 
than doubles the price of cane sugar, it 
must find an early and extensive develop- 
ment. 

To show that these views are not new 
or strained, permit me to bring to your 



" Remarks upon the mimbers of the preceding 
table. — If we compare the present number of sheep 
as indicated in the jireceding table with the num- 
bers heretofore given by us, it will not be difficult 
to recognize that while the production of s'heep 
has decreased or remained stationary in Europe, 
it has prodigiously developed itself in the new 
countries beyond the ocean. Thus, for example, 
the number of woobbearing animals has diminished 
in England, in Sjiain, and even in France, if we 
do not include Algeria; and it has remained 
nearly stationary in the different parts of Germany. 
On the contrary, the development exhibits an 
enormous progression at the Cape, in Australia, 
and, above all, in La Plata. In seven years, from 
i860 to 1867, the production has been raised 
nearly 108 per cent, for the first of these coun- 
tries, nearly loo per cent, for the second, and 268 
per cent, for the third. 



MONTANA LIEUT. DOANE's REPORT. 



19 



notice a letter I had the honor to ad- 
dress to Dr. Latham, a cultivated and 
intelligent gentleman, who, after spend- 
ing years in the Territories, devoted last 
winter to bringing their resources to the 
attention of the wool-growers and woolen 
manufacturers of the Eastern States; 

" House of Representatives, 
Washington, D. C, Dec. 18, 1870. 
" Dr. H. Latham, 

" Laramie, 

U'yoming Te7-7-i(o}y. 

" Dear Sir. — I must achnit that I thought some 
of the statements you made when I met you at 
Laramie, and you were kind enough to accompany 
us eastward were exaggerated ; but subsequent ob- 
servation and study have satisfied me that you did 
not fully indicate the capacity of the territories for 
varied production and the sustenance of a numer- 
ous and prosperous population. 

"Two industries, eacli of primary imjiortance to 
the countiy, should be introduced at an early day 
because both will find there, the conditions under 
which they may be brought almost immediately to 
absolute perfection. I mean the growth of wool, 
both from the Angora and Cashmere goats and 
sheep, and the production of beet-root sugar. For 
the latter, Grant in his admirable Tittle book, 
says the primary essentials are cheap land and fuel 
and jiure water. All these you have wherever the 
melting snow of the mountains can be carried for 
irrigation, and in the neighborhood of all your 
mountain streams. Your natural grasses and 
aromatic herbage are identical with those of the 
great sheep-fields of Asia and Australia ; and 
should you establish the production of the beet, 
and the manufacture of sugar on a large scale, you 
will find, as it has been found everywhere else, 
that three tons of the refuse beet, from which the 
saccharine matter has been expressed, will be 
equivalent to two tons of the best hay in sustain- 
ing and fattening sheep and cattle. It, therefore, 
seems to me that you will render a very important 
service, not only to your own section, but to the 
country at large, if, by making known these pecu- 
liar resources you promote the estalilishment of 
two such vital industries. Either of them will 
doubtless succeed if undertaken by ]iro]:)er hands ; 
but both should be established, as each will con- 
tribute to the success of the other. 

"Again thanking you for the impcjrtant infor- 
mation you have given me, and wishing you 
■ abundant success in your efforts to promote the 
development of this extended and interesting por- 
tion of our country, I remain 

" Yours, veiy truly, 

"WM. D. KELLEY. 

Montana — Lieut. Doanc' s Report. 

Thanks to the admirable scientific train- 
ing. given our army officers at West Point, 
and the desire of that distinguished sol- 



dier and son of Pennsylvania, Gen. Win- 
field S. Hancock, [applause,] to ascertain 
and disclose the resources of the district 
of which he is in command, we have a 
recent official report on the characteristics 
of a hitherto unexplored section of Mon- 
tana, the Avonders of which not only ex- 
ceed those of Niagara and the geysers of 
California, but rival in magnitude and 
extraordinary combination those of the 
Yo Semite, the canons of Colorado and 
the geysers of Iceland. But I cannot 
pause even to allude to these. Tourists 
and men of science will give the world 
many a description of them. My pur- 
pose is to illustrate the climate and 
the fertility not only of the valleys but of 
the mountains, which bear trees rising be- 
yond one hundred feet in height at an 
elevation which in New York or New 
England would mark the region of per- 
petual snow. 

I have here Executive Document No. 
51, of the Third Session, Forty-first Con- 
gress. It is the report (and you will see 
that it is quite brief) of Lieut. Gustavus 
C. Doane, upon the so-called Yellowstone 
expedition of 1870. It is Lieut Doane's 
account of a brief tour made by the 
Surveyor General of Montana, whose 
duty it was to survey the yet hidden 
region of his district, and who applied 
to Gen. Hancock for an escort to enable 
him to do so with safety. The General 
promptly complied with the request, and 
put the escort under the charge of Lieut. 
Doane, with instructions to keep a record, 
noting the condition of the barometer 
and thermometer, and the elevation of 
each day's camp, and to report these and 
such other facts as might in his opinion 
be of general interest. 

The party were out thirty-four days. 
Their point of departure was Fort Ellis, 
which is at an elevation of 491 1 feet, and 
at which the thermometer at noon, on the 
day of their departure, August 22, 1870, 
stood at 92°. On the morning of the 
third day they found themselves at an 
elevation of 4837 feet, the barometer 



MONTANA LIEUT. DOANE S REPORT. 



Standing 25.10, the thermometer 40°. In 

noting that day's experience, Lieut. Doane 

says : 

"Throughout the forenoon it rained occasional 
showers, but before 12 o'clock the clouds rolled 
away in heavy masses along the mountain sides, 
the sun came out and the atmosphere was clear 
again. From this point a beautiful view is ob- 
tained. The mining camp of Emigrant Gulch is 
nearly opposite, on a small stream coming down 
from the mountains on the opposite side of the 
river. A few settlements have been made in this 
vicinity, and small herds of cattle range at will 
over the broad extent of the valley. Our camp 
was situated at the base of the foot-hills, near a 
small grove, from which flowed several large 
springs of clear water, capable of irrigating the 
whole bottom in front. The soil here is very fer- 
tile, and lies favorably for irrigation; timber is 
convenient, water eveiywhere abundant, and the 
climate for this region reniarkablv mild. Resi- 
dents informed me that snow seldom fell in the 
valley. Stock of eveiy kind subsist through the 
winter without being fed or sheltered. Except- 
ing the Judith Basin, I have seen no district in the 
western territories so eligible for settlement as the 
upper valley of the Yellowstone. Several of the 
party were very successful during the morning in 
fishing for trout, of which we afterward had an 
abundant and continued supplv. The Yellowstone 
here is from 50 to 100 yards wide, and at the low- 
est stage four feet deep on the riffles, running over 
a bed of drift boulders and gravel with a very 
rapid current. The flow of water is fully equal 
to that of the Missouri at Fort Benton, owing to 
the rapidity of the current, though the channel is 
much more narrow." 

By the fifth day the party had attained 
an elevation of 7,331 feet, where the 
thermometer at noon marked 72°. Here 
they foimd themselves in the midst of 
indescribable volcanic wonders. They 
were, however, notwithstanding their 
great elevation, in the midst of groves of 
pine and aspen. 

In his notes of the eighth day Lieut. 
Doane says : 

"Barometer, 23°; thermometer, 50°; elevation, 
7,270 feet. 

" Coming into camp in advance, passing through 
a grove of pine " 

Can one who has not visited the pampas 
of South America, Australia, the elevated 
plains of Asia, or our own sheep-growing 
territory, imagine a forest of pines at 48° 
north latitude, rising from an elevation 
of 7,270 feet above the level of the sea? 

" Coming into camp in advance, passing through 
a grove of jiine, on the margin of a little creek, I 
was met face to face on the path, by two magnifi- 



cent buck elk, one of which I wounded, but lost 
in the woods. Mr. Smith started up a small bear, 
which also got away. The ground was eveiywhere 
tracked by the passage of herds of elk and moun- 
tain sheep; and bear sign was everywhere visible." 

The tenth day found the party at an 
elevation of 7,697 feet, with the ther- 
mometer at 46° in the morning. De- 
scribing the high hills, (one of which, 
Langford's Peak, rises abruptly to the 
height of 10,327 feet,) by which they 
were surrounded, and through which the 
waters of the Yellowstone poured in one 
of the grandest cataracts of the world, 
Lieut. Doane says : 

" On the caps of these dizzy heights, mountain 
sheep and elk rest during the night. I followed 
down the stream on horseback, to where it breaks 
through the range, threading my way through 
the forest on game trails with little difficulty. 
Selecting the channel of a small creek and leaving 
the horses, I followed it down on foot, wading in 
the bed of the stream, which fell off at an angle of 
about 30° between walls of gypsum. Private 
McConnell accompanied me. On entering the 
ravine we came at once to hot springs of sulphur, 
sulphate of copper, alum, steam jets, &c., in end- 
less variety, some of them of very peculiar form. 
One of them in particular of sulphur had built up 
a tall spire from the slope of the wall, standing 
out like an enormous horn, with hot water trick- 
ling down its sides. The creek ran on a bed of 
solid rock, in many places smooth and slippeiy, 
in others obstructed by masses of debris formed 
from the overhanging cliffs of the sitlphuretted 
limestone above. After descending for three 
miles in the channel we came to a sort of bench 
or terrace, the same one seen previously in follow- 
ing down the creek from our first camp in the basin. 
Here we found a large flock of mountain sheep, 
very tame, and greatly astonished, no doubt, at 
our sudden appearance. McConnell killed one 
and wounded another, whereupon the rest dis- 
appeared, clambering up the steep walls with a 
celerity truly astonishing." 

On the twelfth day, at an elevation 
of 7,487 feet, they discovered a recent 
volcano, throwing steam and mud to the 
height of 300 feet. I refer to this, not to 
dwell upon this wonder (for it was but 
one among a myriad), but as evidence of 
the condition of vegetation and the capa- 
city of the country to sustain flocks at 
that elevation. Lieut. Doane .says : 

" The distances to which this mud has been 
thrown, are truly astonishing. Directly above 
the crater rises a steep bank, a hundred feet in 
height, oit the apex of which the tallest tree near 
is 1 10 feet his^h. The topmost branches of this 
tree were loaded with mud 200 feet above and 50 



SETTLEMENTS ALONG THE LINE. COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES. 



feet laterally away from the crater. The ground 
and fallen trees near by, were splashed at a hori- 
zontal distance of 200 feet. The trees below were 
either broken down or their branches festooned 
, with dry mud, which appeared in the tops of trees 

growing on the side hill from the same level with 
the crater, 50 feet in height, and at a distance of 
iSo feet from the volcano." 

Certainly vegetation is not stunted by 
climate when in this elevated and vol- 
canic region upon the apex of the hills, 
trees attain the height of no feet ! 

But Lieut. Doane's report is replete 
with evidence that the valleys are capable 
of sheltering sheep and cattle from the 
severity of climate that prevails upon the 
/T y greater elevations during the winter. 
•*^ But the route of the Northern Pacific 

Railroad is not obstructed by mountains 
like these ; the highest point it attains 
being the Deer Lodge Pass through the 
Rocky Mountains, which is 4950 feet, 
being 3285 feet below the grade of the 
Union Pacific Road at Sherman, where, 
two years ago, I gathered a bouquet 
composed of the wild flowers common to 
Eastern Pennsylvania. 

Settlements Along the Line. 

It must be admitted that a portion of 
the land in Dakota, Montana and Idaho, 
through which this road will run, is un- 
suited to cultivation, but the proportion 
is much less than will be found on the 
line of any more southern road. The 
alkali plains alone which the Union and 
Central road traverses are broader than 
the breadth of all the bad lands along the 
line of the Northern route. Governor 
Stevens, who superintended the original 
government survey of this line, and fre- 
quently crossed the country, said, that 
"•not more than one-fifth of the land from 
Red River to Paget Sound is unsuited to 
cultivation, antl this fifth is largely made 
up of mountains covered with bunch 
grass and valuable timber, and filled witii 
precious metals." But, ladies and gen- 
tlemen, were it true that but one-fifth 
instead of four-fifths of the land granted 
to the Northern Pacific Company between 
the western boundary of Minnesota and 



the eastern boundary of Washington and 
Oregon, is presently available for the 
purposes of settlement, the grant would, 
in my judgment, be adequate for the con- 
struction of the road. Indeed, I believe 
that the lands granted in Minnesota, 
Oregon and" Washington Territory, would 
build and equip the road. 

Commercial Advantages.* 

No part of the capital employed in 
constructing this road will be long un- 



* The Chicago yournal, in an intelligent review 
of the Pacitic Railroads, says : 

The census returns of 1S60 gave 460,1 12 as the 
sum total of the population of Nebraska, Wvoming, 
Utah, Nevada and California — the dislncl now 
traversed by the Union and Central I'acilic Rail- 
roads. Work was commenced on the road, at 
both ends, in the winter of 1863. Between the 
two dates mentioned, owing to the war, it is evi- 
dent that the far West could not have received 
much of an addition to its population. Looking 
back now, it is easy to see why so many of its 
friends, even, prophesied that tinancially the road 
would be a failure. They regarded the enicrprise 
as one of political necessity, but could see no 
money in it. Its route, for the most part, lay 
through a wilderness incapable of agricultural 
settlement. Of the whole number of inliabitants 
above given all but 90,118 were in the State of 
California. 

***** 

The earnings of the Central and Union Pacific 
Railroad were Fourteen Millions in 1S70 — the 
net receipts over operating expenses being in 
excess of Six Millions. In other words, in the 
first year of its through business it earned enough 
over and above running expenses to pay six per 
cent, on a fair estimate of its cost. In six years 
the Central Pacific (forming one-half of the through 
line) has earned Ten Millions net, being nearly 
Six Millions more than the interest on its Bonds 
and all the the cost of operating. Sixty- five per 
cent, of this came from local traffic, and one year 
only of through business is included in it. The 
authorities of the Central Pacific estimate the earn- 
ings of their road for 187 1 at Ten Millions, and 
President Thomas A. Scott, of the Union Pacific, 
places the earnings of that road, this year, at 
Nine Millions, making 319,000,000 for the through 
line from San Francisco to Omalia. Of this at 
least 39.000,000 will be net above running ex- 
penses, or 9 per cent, on a reasonable estimate of 
the entire cost of the road. The first mortgage 
bonds of the Central Pacific, bearing six per cent, 
interest, and secured only on the road, are now 
selling at 103. So oppositely to all expectation 
has the operation of the road turned out ! 

.Since the commencement of the Union and 
Central Pacific, San Francisco has grown from 
being a city of sixty thousand inhabitants to be a 
city of a hundred and fifty thousand. But, includ- 



22 



THE NORTHERN RIVER SYSTEM. 



productive, as a remunerative business 
awaits the completion of each section. 
From the Missouri at Omaha to the Sac- 
ramento no navigable stream crosses or 
approaches the Union and Central road, 
while the route of this road is traversed. 



ing that, a total population of the belt of States 
and Territories through which the road runs is 
only 788,270. And this number of people, with 
aid from a portion of Colorado (population 39,- 
681) furnish business to the Union and Central 
Pacific at the rate of Fourteen to Nineteen Mil- 
lion dollars per year. This brings up the rather 
curious question, How many inhabitants are 
necessai-y in a given district to make a railway 

And now comes the Northern Pacific, certainly 
with greater probabilities of success than were be- 
fore the Union and Central Pacific. While it equals 
the other in mineral wealth, the country through 
which it runs is vastly more inviting to the far- 
mer. Indeed, testimony shows it to be of special 
agricultural value. Leaving out California on 
the Union-Central Pacific, and also excluding 
Minnesota on the Northern Pacific, and the latter 
road has 104,752 more people to contribute to its 
local business than awaited the opening of the 
Union and Central Pacific, and only 23,592 less 
than give support to the latter road now. 

Including those two States, which would not 
be unfair, inasmuch as the Northern Pacific will 
have in Minnesota, with its main and branch 
lines, over eight hundred miles of road, draining 
two-thirds of the entire State — including these 
two States, the tributary population of the North- 
ern road in all is 639,433, or 179,321 more than 
were at first reached by the Union-Central 
Pacific, and only 148,837 less than give aid to it 
now. 

But the figures given are suggestive. What, 
principally within the last five years, has added 
100,000 to the population of San Francisco? 
Surely nothing so much as the summons of iron 
knocking at the Golden Gate. If a road can add 
100,000 people in five years to an existing city, 
cannot another one in the same time build up a 
city of 100,000, especially if, by reason of its 
shorter oceanic distance, it is demonstrated that 
it will necessarily control foreign shipments? 

Few doubt tliat if the land lying along the 
Union Pacific hatl Ijeen as available for agriculture 
as the lands of the Northern Pacific, the popula- 
tion along the route would have trebled as well as 
tJiat of its terminal city. Here, then, the case 
will probably stand : — The Northern Pacific, on 
its completion, will find a flourishing city awaiting 
it on Puget Sound, inferior, of course, in size, to 
San Francisco, but still a thriving, well-grown 
city, as helpful to it as the other to its Southern 
compeer. It will, during its progress, on account 
of its fertile lands, more than quadruple the popu- 
lation west of Minnesota, and so bids more than 
fair to equal the first through business of the 
Union and Central Pacific, while for the succeed- 
ing years its returns will be vastly greater. 



at intervals of about two hundred miles, 
along its whole extent by navigable streams 
upon which there are considerable settle- 
ments. One eastern terminus of the road 
is the western-most point of our magnifi- 
cent system of Lake navigation — the other 
is the head of navigation on the Missis- 
sippi river at St. Paul, a city whose popula- 
tion numbers about 25,000. Duluth, its 
lake terminus, is rising into commercial 
importance more rapidly than did Chicago, 
and with the promise of continuous growth. 
It is the port through which the people of 
Minnesota and the entire new Northwest 
will exchange commodities not only with 
all the lake ports of the U. S. and British 
America, but with Europe, and the com- 
mercial cities of the Atlantic seaboard. 
It will also be the chief outlet for the in- 
creasing tens of millions of bushels of 
wheat and feet of lumber, produced by 
the farmers and lumbermen of Minnesota. 
Though Duluth is not yet four years old, 
her foreign commerce is large enough to 
to command the attention of the Trea- 
sury Department, and require the ap- 
pointment of a deputy collector and 
several minor officers of customs. 

The NortJicrn Rive)- System. 

The settlements on the Red river of 
the North, the western boundary of Min- 
nesota, are numerous, and the trade of 
the extended and fertile valleys it drains 
will await the completion of the road to 
that river, which will be accomplished 
by the ist of September. Beyond Min- 
nesota, the line crosses or runs upon 
the banks of the Dakota, Missouri and 
Yellowstone, which are east of the 
Rocky Mountains, and navigable for 
hundreds or thousands of miles ; and 
beyond the Rocky Mountains, the Snake, 
the Cowlitz and the Columbia rivers, 
will prove immediate and valuable tribu- 
taries to its business. Its western termini 
are at Portland on the Willamette, twelve 
miles above its confluence with the Col- 
umbia, which is already an important 
commercial centre, and a point yet to 



THE FUTURE PACIFIC METROPOLIS. SOME OFFICIAL TESTIMONY. 



23 



be determined on the waters of Paget 
Sound, which are the predestined field of 
a commerce that, at an early day, will 
exceed that of San Francisco, and, in the 
not very distant future, equal the present 
commerce of New York. I cannot give 
the figures to show the extent of the 
trade of the Columbia river and its con- 
fluents, but am able to assure you from ac- 
tual observation that it has been large 
and i)rofita.ble enough to give the original 
stockholders of the Oregon Steam Navi- 
gation Co. prominent places in the roll of 
heavy capitalists on the Pacific Coast. 

Tiie Futu7-e Pacific Metropolis. 

That the commercial metropolis of the 
Pacific coast would be south of Puget 
Sound I have never believed. Obser- 
vation confirmed the conviction with 
which Mr. Whitney had impressed me. 
And early in August, 1869, just after my 
return from the Pacific coast, at the re- 
quest of Col. John W. Forney, I held 
a protracted conversation with Mr. 
Joseph 1. Gilbert, an experienced phono- 
graphic reporter, who, on the 27th of that 
month, presented to the readers of the 
Press the substance of the interview. Re- 
curring to the Press of that date, I find 
that, speaking on this point, 1 said : 

" Allow me to state one conclusion from personal 
observation. It is that San P>ancisco will, in the 
course of time, cease to be the great city of the Pa- 
cific coast. Her location constitutes her for the 
present the entrepot for all the commerce of the 
coast, embracing the trade from the South Ameri- 
can coast, from the Sandwich Islands, from China, 
Japan, Briusii Columbia, and our tcrritoiy north of 
that city. The Bay of San Francisco, too, is quite 
capable of accommodating the commerce of the 
world. It is, 1 think, unequalled as a bay, in ex- 
tent, beauty and safety. The city has made most 
magnilicent strides. She has her dry-dock, her 
ample wharves, her steam-tugs, her coast defences, 
and has made veiy considerable progress in manu- 
factures. But notwithstanding all these advan- 
tages, my firm impression is that the great city of 
the Pacific coast will have its location on or near 
the waters of Puget Sound. 

******* 

" Here are to be found in abundance timber, 
coal, iron, fish, wheat, all domestic grasses, the po- 
tato, apple, pear, plum, and during more than half 
the year, all the fruits known to our own tables. 
Here, in my judgment, will be located the 



great city of the Pacific coast, as, owing to the pe- 
culiar conformation of the Sound, communication 
may easily be had between distant parts of this ter- 
ritoiy by water. 

" Another consideration is that a city located 
here would be practically nearer to China than is 
.San Francisco; because vessels leaving San Fran- 
cisco for China, notwithstanding the point for which 
they are destined is south of their point of dei)ar- 
ture, are compelled on account of the prevailing 
winds, to make what sailors call a "northing," 
quite up to the Straits of Fuca; in consequence of 
which a vessel starting from the latter point for the 
same destination would have an advantage of three 
or four days over her San Francisco competitor." 

Some Official Testimony. 

But, ladies and gentlemen, let me has- 
ten on and show you by official testimony 
the advantages presented by this route to 
the Pacific over any other north of the 3 2d 
parallel, on which, as I have said, the almost 
tropical climate would prove an obstacle 
to general travel and commerce. In 
pursuance of the act of Congress of March 
3, 1853, the Topographical Engineers 
designated by the Secretary of War, sur- 
veyed seven routes extending from the 
line of the Northern Pacific southward to 
the 32d parallel. Their reports were re- 
ferred by the Secretary of War, for ex- 
amination to Captain A. A. Humphreys 
and Lieut. G. K. Warren, both of whom 
are well known to the country for the dis- 
tinguished services they rendered as com- 
manding generals during the late Avar, 
and the former of whom is now at the 
head of the Engineer Department of the 
United States Army. On the 5 th of 
February, 1855, these officers submitted 
the results of their analysis and compari- 
sons in an elaborate report, in which, 
speaking of the route near the 47th and 
49th parallel they say : 

" The advantages of this route are — its low pro- 
file, which is important in relation to climate; its 
easv grades, and small amount of ascents and de- 
cents, both important if the road should be devel- 
oped to its full working power ; the gi-eat extension 
west of the prairie lands; in the supplies of timber 
over the western half of the route; the facilities 
which the Columbia river and its tributaries, and 
the Missouri, will aftbrd to the construction of the 
road; in the short distance from the Mississippi to a 
seaport of the Pacific; in the western tenninus of 
the road on Puget Sound being nearer to the ports 
of Asia than the tennini of the other routes; in the 



24 



GRADES A NATURAL PATHWAY. EFFECT ON AMERICAN COMMERCE. 



proximity of the eastern terminus to Lake Superior, 
from which a continuous navigation for sea-going 
vessels extends to the Atlantic Ocean; and in the 
existence of coal on Puget Sound." 

The explorations had been but pre- 
liminary and had not disclosed the im- 
portant fact that an abundant supply of 
coal is distributed at easy points along the 
whole route.* 

On page 107 of the first volume of the 
report, to which I refer for a moment, is 
found a tabular statement, showing the 
relative distance by each of the seven 
routes surveyed ; the sum of ascents and 
descents : the length of level route of 
equal working expense ; the comparative 
cost of different routes ; the number of 
miles of route through arable land ; the 
number of miles of route through lands 
generally uncultivated, arable soil being 
found in small areas ; number of square 
miles of sums of areas of largest bodies of 
arable land in uncultivable region ; num- 
ber of miles at an elevation less than 1000 
feet ; ntn"nber at an elevation greater than 
1000 and less than 2000; greater than 
2000 and less than 3000 ; greater than 
3000 and less than 4000 ; greater than 
4000 and less than 5000 ; greater than 
5000 and less than 6000, at which point 
the Northern route disappears from the 
table, while two of the routes have each 
twenty miles at grades above 10,000 feet, 
and both of which it would be necessary 
to tunnel at an elevation of 9540 feet, 
which is 4590 feet above the highest sum- 
mit the Northern road will cross. 

Grades — A N'atural Fatlncay. 

In all these respects the Northern route 
is shown to compare favorably with all 
of its competitors. But its most remark- 
able advantage appears under the head of 
the sum of ascents and descents. High 
rates under this head indicate increased 
percentages of danger and cinrent ex- 



'•■ San Francisco and her ocean steamers are now 
supplied with coal mined on I'uget Sound, near 
the western terminus of the Northern Pacific 
Railroad. Twenty-five thousand tons were 
shipped for this purpose in 1S70. 



pense. The lower the rate of ascent and 
descent the safer and more economical is 
travel. And while the Northern route is 
charged under this head with but 19,100 
feet, the route comparing most favorably 
with it in this respect is that on the 41st 
and 42d parallels, in which the sum is 
29,120, an increase of more than fifty per 
cent.; and the extreme contrast is that of 
the route on the 38th and 39th parallels, 
in which the sum reaches 56,514. 

The study of these voluminous reports 
will satisfy any reasonable man that from 
Duluth to a point on Puget Sound is 
nature's own route for a Pacific railroad. 
So startling indeed were the advantages 
presented by this route, that the then 
Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, struck 
from the report of Governor Stevens, 
since so distinguished as a soldier and en- 
gineer, the estimate he presented of the 
cost, which was $117,121,000 and in- 
serted in lieu thereof ^130,781,000. His 
keen foresight showed him that the de- 
velopment of the then almost unknown 
Northwest, by the construction of a road 
upon easy gradients through a region of 
such wonderful resources, would, in a few 
years, place his beloved South and slavery 
at the mercy of a free people, overwhelm- 
ingly outnumbering those of the planta- 
tion States. How reckless and unjust this 
action was, is proven by the fact that all 
the more recent estimates fix the cost at 
but little more than sixty-six per cent, of 
that of Governor Stevens, or $77,000,000 
for the road and original equipment. 

Effect on American Commerce. 

The effect the completion of this road, 
with its immense advantages of position 
and grades, is to have upon our commerce 
cannot be predicted. I reiterate the asser- 
tion that the trade of the Pacific Ocean 
must find its chief tv/Z/r/t'/ on Puget Sound; 
and as evidence of my appreciation of the 
future extent and value of this commerce 
let me again refer to the remarks I made 
in Congress on the 26th of April, 1866. 
Replying to a distinguished representative 



PACIFIC COAST HARBORS. — PUGET SOUND. 



25 



from Chicago, 111., who had reminded 
members who were disposed to vote for 
aid to the Northern Pacific Road, that a 
Congressional election was at hand, I said: 

" I appeal from the constituents of the gentleman 
from Chicago [Mr. Wentwortli], on the eve of an 
election, to posterity, and ask gentlemen to view 
the proposed enterprise in the hght in which future 
generations will behold it. They will look beyond 
the vast and undeveloped empire I liave indicated; 
for beyond it lies the broad Pacific, capable of 
bearing a commerce a thousand times heavier than 
has ever chafed the waters of the Atlantic, but 
on which our flag is seen floating only from the 
masts of coasting craft or whalers wending their 
slow way to the Northern seas in quest of hard- 
earned wealth. So slight is our power upon this 
ocean that the recently pardoned rebel Semmes, 
with a single vessel, destroyed nearly a hundred 
of our peaceable whalers, giving their cargoes, 
gathered by y^ars of dangerous toil, to the flames 
or the waves. It bounds our countiy for more 
than a thousand miles, and our maritime power, 
which could not now protect a mile of it, should 
be seen and felt upon it, and our flag and white 
sails or the curling smoke of our steamers should 
shadow its eveiy wave. 

" The commerce of the Pacific ocean belongs to 
us; and we should confimi our title by the right of 
occupancy ; for when we cast our eyes beyond its 
placid surface, we behold what is to be our next 
conquest. The Old World is to be awakened by 
American ideas. Its unnumbered people are to be 
quickened, instructed, and redeemed by American 
enterprise. Some statisticians tell us that there are 
750,000,000 people in the ancient tlieocratic coun- 
tries of the East, which is the West to which the 
star of our commercial empire will next take its 
way. Others put the population at i ,000,000,000 ; 
and othei-s at 1 ,300,000,000. There, where civili- 
zation dawned and the drowsy past yet lingers, the 
first impulses of a new cycle begin to be felt. Japan 
is yielding to the impulses of our age. The Chi- 
nese wall is crumbling away. It was but yesterday 
that I had a letter informing me that our country- 
man. Dr. Martin, interpreter of the American Le- 
gation at Pekin, under the employment of the Chi- 
nese Government, had rendered into that language 
our Wheaton's Law of Nations. Thus, that vast and 
long isolated Power is preparing to enter into com- 
mercial connections with the world. The ancient 
civilization of Asia is giving way, the doctrine of 
sacred castes is about to yield to the sublimer creed 
of man's freedom and equality. Muscular labor 
will soon be done there by the potent agents we 
now employ — coal and iron — and the genius of the 
buried dead, embodied in mechanism, will soon 
relieve their toiling millions as it now does ours. 
Their whole life is to be quickened by modern en- 
terprise, and they will swell the numbers of the 
people on our Pacific slope." 

When it is asserted that these roads 
will give us the control of the commerce 
of China, purblind philosophers point to 
the small portion of that trade carried 



by the Central and Union road as proof 
that that commerce will never cross our 
country. It is not two years since that 
road was completed. Commerce follows 
cheap and rapid lines of transit, and 
railroad fares are regidated by the amount 
of business done. Thus in 1850, by the 
average rate of fares on American roads, 
it cost $20 to transport a ton of wheat 
100 miles; in 1870, a ton of wheat was 
transported the same distance for $1.25. 
[Api)lause.] With increase of business 
the Central and Union Pacific Road will 
be able, while increasing its profits, to 
reduce its rates for freight and travel. 
It is doing it already. Its present rates 
for passengers and freight compare, as 
I have said, most favorably with those 
of 1869 ; and when twenty or thirty other 
branches, like those to Denver and Salt 
Lake City, shall throw their business 
upon the trunk line, and when other 
Evanstons and Cheyennes shall have 
sprung up, when Omaha shall be a city 
like San Francisco, and San Francisco 
a city like Philadelphia, all which may 
occur within the next quarter of a cen- 
tury, who shall say how small will be the 
charge for carrying a chest of tea or a 
case of silk? It will be very small, and 
when railroads shall be able to carry this 
freight as cheaply and more quickly than 
it can be moved by steamers, the trade 
of China and Japan will cross our conti- 
nent, and my prophecies of 1846 and 
1850 wjll be more than fulfilled, as the 
Pennsylvania road will carry the freight 
of two Pacific roads — one from San Fran- 
cisco and the other from the Columbia 
and Puget Sound. [Applause.] 

Pacific Coast Harbors. — Puget Sound. 

Among the strange contrasts presented 
by our two coasts, few are more impres- 
sive than the coast line itself. Harbors 
are numerous along the Atlantic coast. 
No seaboard State is without one or more 
good harbors. Count them, from Gal- 
veston northward and eastward to Port- 
land, Maine, and the number will surpri.so 



26 



PRODUCTIONS, RESOURCES AND SEASONS. 



}ou. The agricultural and mineral pro- 
ductions of almost every State could be 
floated to the sea, while our long Pacific 
coast, south of Alaska, presents but four 
harbors or fair points for commercial cen- 
tres, the Bays of San Diego and San Fran- 
cisco, the Columbia River and Paget 
Sound, the entrance to which is the Straits 
of Fuca. The Alleghanies are inland 
mountains; but the "coast range," as 
their name indicates, lie along the coast 
of the Pacific, leaving harbors only where 
the great waters have forced their way 
through the rocks. 

As I have said, the commerce of China 
and Japan must near our coast north of 
the Bay of San Francisco, north even of 
the mouth of the Columbia, and at a point 
near to the Straits of Fuca. While, there- 
fore, the commerce of the Pacific must 
to some extent be shared by San Diego, 
San Francisco, Portland, and Astoria, a 
city yet to arise on Paget Sound will be 
its great centre. 

Productions, Resources and Seasons. 

Would that I could convey to your 
minds a moderate conception of the 
wealth and climate of this far North- 
western country and of the body of water 
called the Straits of Fuca and Puget 
Sound — so calm, so deep, so guarded by 
forests such as no man who has not visited 
them has ever seen. The Straits of Fuca 
run in an almost direct course more than 
ninety miles, at an average width of more 
than ten miles. The shore-line of Puget 
Sound is nearly 1900 miles, but, such 
is its conformation, that the points at 
greatest distance from each other are not 
four hundred miles apart. The Sound is 
a series of canals, bays, inlets and harbors. 
Gov. Stevens, who lived on its shores for 
a number of years, likened it to a tree, 
with a very recognizable body called 
Admiralty Inlet, and innumerable side- 
branches, the trunk and branches filling 
a region seventy nautical miles in length 
from north to south, and thirty in breadth 



from east to west. In speaking of it 
again, he said : 

" On the whole west coast, from San Diego to 
the north, nothing like this is met. All the water 
channels of which Admiralty inlet is composed, are 
comparatively narrow and long. They have more 
or less bold shores and are throughout very deep 
and abrupt, so much so that in many places a ship's • 
side will strike the shore before the keel will touch 
the giound. Even in the interior and hidden parts, 
depths of 50 and 1 00 fathoms occur as broad as 
De Fuca Strait itself. Vancouver found 60 fathoms 
near the Vashon Island within a cable length of 
the shore, and in Possession Sound he found no 
soundings with a line of 1 10 fathoms. Our mod- 
ern, more extensive soundings prove that this depth 
diminishes toward the extremities of the inlets and 
basins. Nothing can exceed the beauty and safety 
of these waters for navigation. Not a shoal exists 
within them; not a hidden rock; no sudden over- 
falls of the water or the air; no such strong flaws 
of the wind as in other narrow waters, for instance 
as in those of Magellan's Straits. And there are 
in this region so many excellent and most secure 
ports that the commercial marine of the Pacific 
ocean may be here easily accommodated." 

There is but little waste land in Oregon 
and Washington Territory. Oregon em- 
braces 60,975,360 acres, and its popula- 
tion in 1870 was but 90,933. Washing- 
ton Territory contains 112,730,240 acres, 
and the census takers found but 23,955 
civilized people dwelling upon them. 
This State and Territory are among the 
most fertile and productive sections of 
our country. The wheat of Oregon and 
Washington, as you may ascertain by con- 
sulting the commercial papers of San 
Francisco, commands, in the markets of 
that city, ten cents per bushel more than 
the wheat of California; and oats from 
the Territory are worth fifteen cents per 
cental more than the best California oats. 
As we get the wheat of the entire Pacific 
slope through California, we know it only 
as California wheat; but in the home 
market tlie difference I have indicated is 
constantly maintained by reason of the 
superiority of the more northern grain. 

The forests that shelter these waters are 
composed of trees running up from 250 
to 350 feet, with a diameter of from 8 to 
12 feet, and throwing out their first arms 
at from 60 to 100 feet above the ground. 
In these glorious solitudes, upon the waters 
of Puget Sound there are in operation 



THE WORK OF DEVELOPMENT. 



27 



saw mills that will this year ship largely 
over 200,000,000 feet of superior lumber 
to San Francisco, Callao, Valparaiso, the 
Sandwich Islands, Australia and China. 
These forests, an inexhaustible store of 
wealth in themselves, are underlaid by 
rich deposits of coal, iron, gold and sil- 
ver. The beds of iron and coal are 
already utilized to some extent ; and the 
existence of the precious metals, is estab- 
lished by the fact that the washings of 
the water-courses furnish traces of gold 
and other metals. Of the fish with which 
these waters teem, I dare not tax your 
credulity by speaking. 

Though bounded by the 49th degree 
of latitude, the climate is genial through- 
out the year. So mild are the winters — 
indeed, I may say, so free is the country 
from winter — that, notwithstanding the 
moisture of the climate, west of the Coast 
range, no provision is made for housing 
cattle at any season of the year. In the 
month of July, 1869, within the limits 
of Astor's old fort, near the mouth of 
the Columbia river, I picked from the 
orchard of a farmer who had gone thither 
from Bedford County, Pa., a variety of 
delicious apples, pears and plums ; and 
from vines near the trunks of the trees, 
raspberries, strawberries and blackberries 
— a combination of fruits that could not 
be found in the month of July upon 
the best cultivated and most fortunately 
situated farm in Pennsylvania. And a 
week before, our party had found Indian 
women and children vending these fruits 
and the apricot in the streets of Victoria, 
the capital of British Columbia. 

At Olympia, the capital of Washington 
Territory, situated at the head of Puget 
Sound, it was my pleasure to pass the 
greater part of a day with my young 
friend Elwood Evans, Esq., son of Chas. 
Evans, the press manufacturer of this 
city (whom I recognize among my audi- 
tors), and to gather luscious fruit from 
tree and vine in the gardens attached to 
his comfortable home and his law-office 
hard by upon the same street. . 



The Work of Dcvclopmcjit. 

Do you ask, as others have done, why 
with such stores of wealth, waiting to 
respond with such boundless generosity to 
the demands of man, the population does 
not equal one man, woman or child, to 
each square mile? If you do, the answer 
is ready. It is because the people and 
Gjovernment of the United States did not 
promptly respond to the suggestion of Asa 
Whitney, and either by the means pro- 
posed by him, or those they should select 
connect our Pacific territory with the 
great lakes by a railway. Had that been 
done, and the way been then opened to 
emigrants, Washington Territory would 
long since have been divided into two or 
more States, California and Oregon would 
be great commercial rivals, and the popu- 
lation of our Pacific States would equal 
or exceed that of busy and blessed New 
England. 

To reach the golden lands of the Pacific 
coast has been a matter of too much time 
and expense for the poor man, and too 
full of trials for families. The fact that 
in spite of these almost insuperable diffi- 
culties, so many intelligent people have 
found their way thither is a testimonial 
to the wonderful attractions of the coun- 
try, and the immense rewards it offers to 
industry and enterprise. 

Build this road, open these multiform 
and exhaustless resources to the poor 
but enterprising people of the Eastern 
States and Europe, and population will 
flow into them so rapidly that they who 
shall a few years hence hear the story 
of the doubts of to-day about the 
Northern Pacific Railroad will experience 
wonder similar to that which you feel at 
the want of forecast that characterized 
the people of Pennsylvania twenty-five 
years ago, when they shrank from em- 
barking so small a percentage of their 
capital in building the Pennsylvania 
Central road ; and in a few years the 
trunk line of this great thoroughfare will 
carrv the trade of innumerable lateral 



THE WORK OF DEVELOPMENT. 



branches, penetrating not only our valleys 
but those of the British Colonies to the 
North, whose people will thus be made 
tributary to us .forever, or induced to 
unite their destinies with ours, under a 
common constitution and flag. This is 
not declamation or prophecy. It is the 
announcement of conclusions that flow 
irresistibly from an ample store of un- 
questioned facts. 

Do you ask whence the population 
would have come to efi"ect the changes I 
have indicated ? By the construction of 
the road, the character of the climate and 
resources of the country would have been 
disclosed long years ago, and the sheep- 
growers of the States from Vermont to 
Iowa would have transferred their flocks 
to the Asiatic and Australian fields that 
slope the Rocky Mountains. The hardy 
lumbermen from the forests of New Eng- 
land and northern Pennsylvania would 
have found their way to these richer for- 
ests in more genial climes. Nor would 
we then have suffered the decline in our 
ship-building so much and so justly be- 
moaned; for difficult of access as the 
country is, and slender as is its popula- 
tion and commerce, we found along these 
woody shores ship-yards, having on the 
stocks first-class ships, the outer planks 
of which were without a joint, having been 
cut sheer from one of the monarchs of the 
forest on the shores of the Sound. The 
increased coast trade of the Pacific 
commerce between our Atlantic and 
Pacific ports would have kept alive this 
decaying branch of business, which with 
the completion of the Northern Pacific 
Railroad, must revive with grander pro- 
portions than it ever assumed in the past. 

Where will the people come from to 
make this wealth available, to build cities 
at the points along this road at which rail- 
road and river traffic shall intersect, to 
raise provisions for the mining camps, and 
to build up commerce on Puget Sound 
and the Columbia river? What Ameri- 
can, whose memory is good for a quarter 
of a century, asks this question? Where 
have the people come from who, since we 



discussed the propriety of building the 
Pennsylvania Railroad, and Asa Whitney 
submitted the project of a Pacific road, 
have settled Iowa and Wisconsin, whose 
joint population, though then but 200,000, 
now numbers two millions and a quarter^ 
each having over a million ? Where did 
the people come from who, within a brief 
quarter of a century have doubled the 
population of the Northern States of the 
Union? Where have the peo])le come 
from who have meanwhile populated so 
many of the gold and silver-producing 
sections of our vast territories, and built 
up the States of Texas, California, Min- 
nesota and Oregon ? Let Edward Young, 
Esq., Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, 
answer these questions. I 'hold in my 
hand a recent report of his — a document 
that should be circulated by millions 
through the Eastern States and Europe. 
It is entitled, " Special Report on Immi- 
gration, accompanying Information for 
Immigrants relative to the Prices and 
Rentals of Lands, the Staple Products, 
Facilities of Access to Market, Cost of 
Farm Stock, Kind of Labor in Demand 
in the Western and Southern States, etc." 
This report shows that during the 8 years 
terminating with the 31st of December, 
1846, we received 736,887 immigrants, 
of whom 416,950 came from the British 
Isles. But, Mr. Doubter, you interrupt 
me to ask whether this tide of immigra- 
tion will continue? whether it has not 
reached its climax? The Chief of the 
Bureau of Statistics shall answer you 
again ; for his report shows that during 
the like period of 8 years, terminating 
the 31st of last December, we received 
2,307,554 immigrants, of whom there 
came from the British Isles 1,015,517, or 
more than ;^;^ per cent., more than the 
entire immigration during the former 
eight years. 

Yes, the tide of immigration will con- 
tinue, and for many years it will increase. 
Each year will see its volume rolling in, 
until regenerated Europe shall give the 
laborer political power and social con- 
sideration. [Applause.] Our cheap land 



PHILADELPHIA INTERESTS. 



29 



and democratic institutions will bring 
her bone and sinew and enterprise to 
develop the resources and add to the 
wealth and power of our country. [Loud 
applause.] And nothing will do more 
to promote the movement than the ad- 
vertisement to all the world of the vast 
resources of the region through which 
this road is to run and the wonderful 
field for labor, enterprise and adventure 
at its Pacific termini.* 

Philadelpliia Interests. 

But what will be the effect of the road 
upon Philadelphia? What relations has 
all this to our city and State? These 
questions which you propounded to me 
in your invitation, have, I think, been 
answered by what I have said. What 
State or city shares more largely than 
ours in the general prosperity or depres- 
sion of the country? Who will be more 
benefited by the cheapening of freight on 
raw materials and manufactured articles 
than we ? What American city produces 
so many of the comforts and luxuries 
which the people along the line of this 
road will consume as Philadelphia ? 
Their demands will stimulate our industry, 
and their abounding means will enable 
them to reward it abundantly. The con- 
struction of one railroad bridge — that over 



* A late number of tlie St. Paul J'ioneer, speak- 
ing ol the tide ot pupulatiua already pouniig to 
the line ol the Nortlieni racinc Railroad, sa) s : — 

" The roads leading to the Red River V alley 
are literally covered with emigrant wagons, 
with tlieir usual accoinpaniment ol lainiiies, lur- 
niture, and stock ot all kinds, i he wagon roads 
from Sauk Centre to St. Peter show daily acces- 
sions to the vast caravan wending its way to the 
fertile regions of Northern .Mmuesuta. The 
extent ot the great incoming tide of liumaniiy 
can be best estimated on the main road bet\\ecn 
Alexandria and Pomme de Terre. Two hundred 
wagons per day pass over this portion ol tlie route 
northwest, and the camp fires are seldom allowed 
to go out — a fresh train of emigrants arrives 
almost as soon as its predecessor has resumed its 
march. A noticeable leature ol this year's emi- 
gration is its quality — the wagons come loatled 
with household goods and lanning implements, 
and are foUowetl by herds ot caule and other 
stock which in quality would do credit to any 
country." 



the Mississippi river at St. Louis — gave 
to one Philadelphia firm, theWm. Butcher 
Steel Works, a contract for ^500,000 worth 
of steel. And even now, hundreds of 
Philadelphia mechanics are busy building 
locomotives and passenger and freight 
cars for the Northern Pacific Railroad. 

I need not elaborate this point. We 
are a community of working people. 
The mass of the citizens of Philadelphia 
absolutely live by manual labor. The 
prosperity of the capitalists of this city 
is dependent upon the steady employ- 
ment and liberal wages of her working 
people. [Applause. J When labor is 
idle, capital is idle, or employed at little 
profit ; when the laborer earns no wages, 
the landlord is not always sure of his 
rent. [Laughter and applause.] The 
effect that tne construction of this road 
will have upon the employment and wages 
of laboring people was discussed by me 
in the Congressional remarks to which I 
have already referred. Let me read a 
paragraph or two from what I then said : 

" But the inviting held of the ocean, and the vast 
field of enterprise and reward open to us in Asia 
are not the only considerations tnat induce me to 
support this bill. The laboring people ot every 
eastern city have an intense inierest m this ques- 
tion. Tne salety of our countiy depends upon the 
intelligence, the virtue, the stability of our laboring 
people. He legislates not wisely lor a democratic 
republic who does not make it the aim ot all his 
acts to improve the material condition of the great 
laboring masses of the country, if we would per- 
petuate our institutions, we must see that the wages 
ol labor are so maintained that the children of the 
laboring man shall grow up amid tlie ende.irmeiits 
of home, and with me expectation that their chil- 
dren shall hiul more elegance and retiiiement in 
their homes than their parents were familiar with 
in childhood. 

" The construction of a road through our north- 
ern gold region will open a held that will be a con- 
stant refuge lor ihe surplus labor of our eastern 
States. 'Ihere will be a refuge for those masses of 
ingenious workmen who are jostled each year by 
lack of adjustment oi their numbers to the demand 
for their branch of labor, or are deprived of the 
advantage of the skill they acquired in youth by 
the invention of labor-saving machinery; and in- 
stead of finding themselves, as age gathers on their 
brow, without the means of livelihood, rich fields 
of enterprise, easily reached, will cheer their de- 
clining years. 

" But again, the depression of our laboring peo- 
ple springs not alone or chiefly from local causes. 
Beyond the Atlantic Ocean there are 250,000,000 



30 



PHILADELPHIA INTERESTS. 



people, in eveiy community of which laboring men 
are held as raw material ; and under the grasping 
influence of capital, and the oppression of despotic 
government are held in such bondage, that they 
are made to subsist, even when they toil most assidu- 
ously, upon a modicum of the elements of life, upon 
a minimum of the amount that will keep the soul in 
a tolerably sound body. Escaping from this sub- 
iection, they are borne to our shores by tens and 
hundreds of thousands each year. They are strang- 
ers in a strange land, many of them unacquainted 
with our language and habits, and are unconsciously 
and unwillingly the means of depressing wages. 
But if we give to the company the means to inaugu- 
rate work on this road, we will not only relieve the 
laboring masses of our crowded eastern cities, but 
furnish employment for more than the annual influx 
of those whom we gladly welcome, because they 
strengthen and enrich us by their toil. Could we 
drain Europe of its surplus laborers we would raise 
her wages as she now too often depresses ours. 

"What will be the true policy of the builders of 
this road? Will it not be to employ as laborers, 
the heads of families, and to pay them with land 
and money, and settle the families along the line 
of the road, so that the laborer of one year will, in 
the next, farm his land and supply fresh laborers 
with bread? Thus will he who enters into an en- 
gagement with the company a pauper, or little bet- 
ter, find himself at the end of a year or two an 
independent farmer upon the world's great com- 
mercial highway. The managers of the road must 
pursue this policy, and will thus create business for 
and guard their road; thus, too, they will quicken 
the mineral and agricultural resources of the coun- 
try, and give to the tax collector, whether at a port 
of entry, or in the service of the internal revenue 
department, more money each year than this bill is 
likely to cause to be taken from the treasuiy." 

" I ask gentlemen in considering this question 
to rise to its dignity and grandeur. I am, sir, a 
devotee to freedom, but would make every country 
in the world tributaiy to my own. I delight in 
every manifestation of my countiy's power, and 
glow with pride as I contemplate its gigantic pro- 
portions, and see how rapidly its people subdue the 
wilderness, and would, as 1 have said, make every 
nation tributaiy to its power; but I would do this, 
not liy oppressing any people, not by war wjth any 
government, but by improving the condition of the 
masses of my countrymen and those who may 
become such by emigration, and showing the rulers 
and people of the world how speedily free institu- 
tions exalt the poor and oppressed of all nations 
into free, self-sustaining and self-governing citizens. 
It is in our power to do this, and by no other means 
can we do it so well or quickly as Ijy passing this 
supplement and vivifying the charter granted to the 
Northern Pacific Railroad Company." 

But, ladies and gentlemen, I have 
detained you too long, and must close. 
Not, however, until I shall have reminded 
you that the grades and snows of the 
Alleghanies have not interfered with the 
prosperity of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company. That road has not been a 



failure. It has done something for the 
improvement of Philadelphia. It is the 
most profitable railroad, and most pow- 
erful corporation in the United States. 
[Applause.] It has stretched its control- 
ling influence clear across the Continent. 
Its vice-president, our esteemed towns- 
man, Thomas A. Scott, Esq., is the 
master-spirit of the Union Pacific Com- 
pany, and of more than one line connect- 
ing it with Philadelphia. [Applause.] 
Roads owned or managed by the Penn- 
sylvania Company await -the business of 
the Northern Pacific road, both at St. 
Paul and Duluth. It has built a road 
to Erie, our beautiful city of the Lakes, 
where vessels charged with freight at 
Duluth will in the early spring and later 
autumn of each year, discharge cargo 
for New York and Boston, and through- 
out the season of Lake navigation, for 
Philadelphia and Baltimore; and it re- 
quires but little power of the imagination 
to behold Erie expanding into generous 
rivalry with Buffalo, Cleveland and De- 
troit. 

Though the great characteristics of 
Philadelphia will always be those of a 
manufacturing city, her commerce is to 
revive. She will have not a line but 
numerous lines of steamships ; and many 
of the men who now hear me will see the 
day when her existing wharf line will be 
wholly inadequate for her commerce. 
Indeed the completion of the Northern 
Pacific road, with the steadily increasing 
trade of the Central route will settle the 
now vexed question of a railroad along 
the entire river front, and require the 
construction of docks from Greenwich 
Point to Richmond. But familiar as you 
are with the resources of our city and 
State, and the advanced condition of our 
industries, I leave you to estimate the 
impulse that will be given to every inte- 
rest and industry of our people by the 
early completion of the Northern Pacific 
Railroad. [Amid earnest and prolonged 
applause the speaker retired.] 



By B. F. potts, 
governor of montana territory. 



In the middle of the continent, between 
the Great Lakes and the Pacific Ocean — 
in the heart of that New Northwest, the 
extent, character and resources of which 
the people are at last beginning to appre- 
ciate — embracing within its boifndaries 
four parallels of latitude and no less than 
twelve degrees of longitude, lies the great 
Territory of Montana. The superficial 
area of this territory is extensive enough 
to make three states as large as New York, 
the Empire State of the East; and, as I 
have stated elsewhere, I believe it to be 
the richest region in agricultural and 
mineral resources on the American 
continent. There are at least fifty thous- 
and square miles of tillable land within 
its limits; and this land, under a cheap 
and simple process of irrigation, is of 
unsurpassed fertility, yielding in the 
greatest abundance all varieties of the 
cereals. I have seen samples of wheat 
which yielded eighty bushels to the acre, 
and the average yield, even with the very 
imperfect methods of cultivation which are 
in vogue here, is from forty to sixty-five 
bushels. This exceeds the yield of the 
famous wheat-fields of Minnesota, and is 
about four times as great as the average 
wheat crop of Ohio. Rye, oats and barley 
produce enormously, and the yield of vege- 
tables is simply without a parallel in the 
history of horticulture in America The 
common yield of potatoes, for instance, 
is 400 bushels per acre. 

Lands for grazing purposes, too, are 
of vast extent and of the best quality. 
Grasses as nutritious as sheaf-oats cover 
the hills and valleys and extend far up 



the mountain sides, affording pasturage 
for numberless herds of cattle and sheep 
during the entire year. The cattle alone 
now to be found in the Territory number 
at least sixty thousand head, and so 
abundant are these grasses, and so mild 
is our climate, that no grain or hay is fed 
to them at all — they take care of them- 
selves and keep fat all winter. Our meat 
markets are supplied with beef taken 
from among the different herds at all 
seasons of the year, and it is found to be 
of the fattest and sweetest, making de- 
licious food, superior generally in quality 
and flavor to the grain fed stock of the 
States. Certainly no country can sur- 
pass this for grazing purposes ; and there 
is none where, in the future, when the 
Northern Pacific Railroad has reached 
us, such fortunes are to be made in the 
business of raising stock for the market. 

Of the mineral wealth of Montana all 
the world has heard. Not less than twelve 
million dollars' worth of gold-dust was 
taken from the mines last season, and 
iron, copper, coal, and other minerals 
exist in exhaustless abundance. 

I suppose, however, that the thing 
about our New Northwest which has most 
surprised the public is the genial charac- 
ter of its climate. Radically different as 
it may seem from the prevalent idea re- 
garding it, it is nevertheless true that the 
climate of Montana, as a whole, is milder 
than that of New York, while the purity 
and dryness of the atmosphere make the 
variations of temperature far less noticea- 
ble. The old theory that the further 
north we go the more severe the climate 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES OF MONTANA. 



becomes is now generally exploded. It 
is understood, at last, that isothermal 
divisions, except in their larger aspects, 
are entirely independent of degrees of 
latitude ; and the various explorers and 
topographers who have been sent out here 
by the Government have shown by instru- 
mental tests that the temperature of 
Walla Walla, on the 46th degree of lati- 
tude, is the same as that of Washington 
City, on the 38th ; that of Clark's Fork, 
in Montana, on the 48th, the same as 
that of St. Joseph, Missouri, on the 41st; 
and that of the Bitter Root Valley, Mis- 
soula County, Montana, on the 46th, 
the same as that of Philadelphia, on 
the 41st. 

The winters in this section are gener- 
ally open and pleasant, as may be inferred 
from the fact of the cattle grazing without 
shelter all winter. The valleys are 
hardly ever covered with snow, and it 
is rare that the roads are not dry and 
passable for ten months in the year. On 
the mountains, of course, as in moutain- 
ous regions usually, winter sometimes 
pinches hard, and snow falls to considera- 
ble depths ; but even the mountains are not 
the least attractive features of the territory. 
The elevation of the mountains, valleys, 
and plains of Montana above the level of 
the sea is from 2,000 to 4,000 feet less 
than that of Wyoming and Utah. This 
fact alone goes far to explain the milder 
climate and vastly greater productive- 
ness of Montana. 

How this great wealth, agricultural 
and mineral, is to be utilized and made to 
contribute its due share to the nation's 
commercial prosperity is a question not less 
important to the people at large than to 
the inhabitants of Montana itself; and in 
considering it I am brought to that great 
enterprise, the Northern Pacific Railroad, 
now building and destined to traverse from 
east to west our entire territory. This road 
will drain our richest valleys, and furnish 
an outlet for the immense future surplus 
productions of the Territory. All that has 



heretofore been written about the super- 
ior land-grant of the Northern Pacific 
Railroad in Montana, scarcely gives an 
adequate conception of the extent and 
true value of the grant. The company 
will receive twenty-five thousand six hun- 
dred acres of our best agricultural and 
grazing land for every mile of road that 
is built — lands which not only possess 
all the advantages which I have men- 
tioned, but are within easy reach of 
timber, and abound in fine building- 
stone of almost every variety and inex- 
haustible in quantity. I have no doubt 
that these lands will not only cancel the 
entire cost of building the railroad, but 
will leave a surplus to the company. 

The Northern Pacific Railroad is of 
immense importance to Montana. It 
will enable our stock raisers to compete 
on favorable terms with those of Illinois 
and other states in the markets of the 
Eastern cities. A new impetus will be 
given to all our industries. Our mines 
will be developed, new ones will be 
opened, and those that produced twelve 
million dollars in gold last season will 
far exceed that sum annually. Our popu- 
lation will rapidly increase : the sixty- 
two cities and towns we now have will be 
doubled in number and quadrupled in 
size; and the public land, now unoccu- 
pied, will be cultivated by actual settlers. 
Other prosperous states will spring up 
around us ; and before we enter upon 
another decade this great Northwest, 
now lying broad and inviting before the 
settler, will be contributiftg its rightful 
share toward the wealth, commerce, and 
general prosperity of the nation. 

The enterprise which is opening this 
Nev. Northwest is truly a great national 
work, and well deserves the encourage- 
ment, co-operation and support alike of 
all who, as Americans, feel an interest 
in the country's progress, or who as 
capitalists desire a liberal return upon 
investment. 



— w 

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